In these times

I think we're reading this book at a particularly telling time, with the election and issues of leadership, civic duty, freedom swirling around. You can't help but think of our current climate when reading, or at least I can't. I was really struck by how much literature, writing, and knowledge were emphasized by the Puritan colony Vowell focuses on, basically our founders. It's sad to think how far we've gotten away from that. Especially when the love of knowledge, learning, traveling, writing, literature, complexity, and attending the very same Ivy League schools that the Puritans founded is referred to as 'elitist.' Just thought I would share.

Sarah Vowell on Letterman

In case you missed it, like I did:

Out today

The Wordy Shipmates is now officially out, so pick up a copy at your local bookstore or library. I did. I'm pretty sure Kate did. So I hope you all resort to peer pressure and do your part to boost our economy. Buy it. Or check it out. Just do it.

More Puritan Fun!

Even though I'm usually not a fan of books written in, well, the last couple of decades, I'll give "The Wordy Shipmates" a try if simply because I'm taking an American Literature class that focuses on Puritan Lit. Puritan Lit is as boring as hell (Puritans, if they were reading, would take offense not only because I dissed their literature but because I swore. That's why I did it). Winthrop is an abstract bore with one good catchphrase (Sarah Palin, it was Winthrop who coined "city on a hill" first, not Reagan. Although it is quite possible that ole Reagan knew Winthrop back in the day, Winthrop still deserves credit because frankly it's the one claim to fame he'll ever get); Jonathan Edwards inspires anger in even the meek with such classic imagery as spiders over cauldrons (sinners in this case being the spider and the cauldron...I'm sure you get what the cauldron represents); Bradford is a killjoy who even manages to make a trial over bestiality boring. All in all, I think I've done the most research for Vowell.

Rest In Peace

Phoenix rising, ship sailing

Perhaps we should dust this thing off and reconvene for the upcoming Sarah Vowell book The Wordy Shipmates. I think that could be a fast, informative and engaging read that everyone could agree on. You really can't go wrong with Sarah Vowell. What do you all think? It comes out October 7th. That way we also have time to finish any books we're currently reading and get all pumped up for our thrilling and participatory discussion on this very blog.

Who's with me? (Feel free to respond Aye, aye Captain!).

Come On Guys!

Wow, talk about disappointing. After my intial gushing over "To The Lighthouse" nobody seemed willing to follow it with a discussion of any kind. Well, I am currently reading "Jacob's Room," an early work of Virginia Woolf, which leads me to this blog. "Jacob's Room" is Woolf's first stream of consciousness novel, a work of art in its own right, which would seem more startling and noteworthy if not for the greater successes of "Mrs. Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse" after it. It also uncovers similar themes of family, art (in this case history and the Greeks in place of To the Lighthouse's painting and literature), and of course, WWI. For as much as WWII dominates the History Channel and occupies about all the shelves in a bookstore's history section, WWI has produced a greater extent of literature and in my mind still remains the Great War. It disillusioned; it maimed if it did not kill first; it stunned and shell-shocked. "Jacob's Room" introduces these themes to a small extent, but if we were to get a discussion going on "To the Lighthouse" we would scratch the surface of what lies beneath the war that nobody talks about, the war that nobody remembers.