In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books...
Permanent reading list:
The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond.- one of these days...
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Adventure of the Norwood Builder- One of the best Holmes stories that I have read...what makes this so, so good is that the plot of this story and the solution of the mystery actually turns on fingerprint evidence. I remembered that it was around this time that fingerprint evidence first became widely used and, sure enough, Scotland Yard first established it’s Fingerprint Bureau in 1901...and Doyle milks his understanding of this new forensic method here in one helluva way.
My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition. “At present I cannot spare energy and nerve force for digestion,” he would say in answer to my medical remonstrances.
I am reading:
In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel Delany: Vol 1 1957-1969- Both style and subject matter seem to be gelling as well as those long, complicated trains of thought that are occasionally too “elliptical” and hard to follow. Loved Marilyn Hacker’s commentary on a poem….she didn’t like it and rather mocked the poem...In his more elliptical moments, it’s easy to forget that Delany was 18 years old when he wrote these entries.
The painter and the sculptor will always have charge of setting up the beauty standards in society. Pimply skin will never become a criterion for beauty because smooth skin is far easier to draw or sculpt.
Is that still true or has another medium or form of art taken over beauty standards? T
The Secret World: A History of Intelligence by Christopher Andrew
Labyrinths of Iron by Benson Bobrick
I will be reviewing:
South Side Venus: The Legacy of Margaret Burroughs by Mary Ann Cain w/ forward by Haki Madhubuti- This review will be published as my BK commentary 1/29/19.
While I don’t see much of a need to return to school to earn a Ph.D, I have given thought to going to graduate school to earn my M.A. Jeanna Kadlac’s essay over at LitHub reminds me of one of the reasons that I hesitate in doing so.
I think that reading and literature should be fun...and can be fun even in an academic setting with others. There’s also something to be said for having a certain amount of expertise on a subject, I suppose...but not at the expense of losing one’s self in the joy and wonder of reading.