Rebecca Reads » Essays/Articles on Reading

Reading Reflections (Reading Old Books) + Reading Journal (31 March)

Rebecca Reid — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:11:50 +0000

I have more confidence in the dead than in the living.
—William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was a contemporary of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, not to mention Jane Austen. He was considered one of the most important critics and essayists of the English language, although he is little read today (see Wikipedia).

I love his sentiments on reading old books, for I feel similarly. He comments that with contemporary authors, we’re distracted by their life and opinions, and they can be either for good or ill. With dead authors, if you want to know about them “you have only to look into their works.” When I read, I don’t want to interview an author and learn about their inspiration. Normally, I just want to read their books.

I also take issue with much modern literature, simply because I don’t like read about sex in books. It has to be really tastefully done for me not be annoyed. The sex in The Masterpiece was thus tastefully done. The sex in (the abandoned) Norwegian Wood – not so much.

At any rate, this quote from Hazlitt rang true to me this week:

The dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality.

Does a modern author’s life influence your read of their books? What about a dead author’s life? Which do you prefer: the old or the new? I do like modern books, I’m just picky about which ones.

(The above quote is from “On Reading Old Books” by William Hazlitt, written in the early 1820s, quoted page 7 of Reading in Bed, edited by Steven Gilbar. Read it online here. Part of the essay is also about rereading old favorites, but that will have to be a subject for another time.)

Reading Journal (31 March)

In the last two weeks, I went nine days without finishing a book (I was reading but the books were longer) and then I finished a number of things in the last few days! Some were short, and others I’d been working on for a while. I also abandoned a number of books for various reasons. Some I want to return to. Others I wish I’d never attempted.

Finished

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (140 pages; fiction).
The Book of Mormon (530 pages; religious/scripture). This was my project book this month. As it is a reread and this blog is not a religious one, I won’t be” reviewing” it.
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation by Michael Keller (190 pages; nonfiction, graphic novel).
King Lear by William Shakespeare (170 pages; drama). Love love love this!
The Masterpiece by Emile Zola (425 pages; fiction). For the April Classics Circuit. I am not a huge fan of Zola, I’ve decided.

Abandoned Reading

Japan: A Concise History by Milton Walter Meyer (87 read of 300; nonfiction). I didn’t have time to dedicate to it.
A History of Japanese Literature: From the Manyoshu to Modern Times by Shuichi Kato, abridged by Don Sanderson. (ISBN: 1873410484) (30 pages read of 320 pages; nonfiction). This is a great abridgement of Kato’s three-volume tome. I may request this again and read more in a few months.
Genome by Matt Ridley. For my genetics themed month, but I just didn’t have time to get to it.
Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami (about 140 read of 290; fiction). This book had too much sex, an example of the typical modern fiction I don’t want to read. I only read so much because it is a well-written book in general. Are any other Murakami books less full of sex? Sensuality doesn’t bother me.
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (25 read of 40 pages; fiction). I wanted to read this out loud to my son but he is apparently not interested. I’m pondering different chapter books I can try.

Currently Reading

Each week, I list my progress so I can see how my reading compares week to week.

Our Latter-day Hymns: The Stories and Their Messages by Karen Lynn Davidson (140 read of 455 pages; nonfiction). I really do enjoy reading this and singing the hymns as I go; I just go slowly, so it’s still here on the list!
Reading in Bed edited by Steven Gilbar (nonfiction/essays). A collection of essays about our favorite topic: reading. Occasionally, I’ll post some thoughts about an essay for the Reading Reflections feature. (See above, for example!)
Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki (65 read of 230 pages; fiction). My next Japanese novel since the Murakami I picked up was a no-go for me.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, P&V translation. I have not yet begun.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I haven’t begun yet.

New Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

None! I’ve been trying to reign in my out-of-control library use, and also read books off of my shelf.

Finds

Governess: The Life and Times of Real Jane Eyres by Ruth Braddon. Chris at book-a-rama. Perfect for the Our Mutual Read challenge.
The Evolution of Language by W. Tecumseh Fitch. Mentioned by Aarti in a comment.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. Stefanie and Emily in a comment.
Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers. Nymeth at Things Mean A Lot. Perfect for Women Unbound Challenge, except I can’t find it in my library!!
Emma by Kaoru Mori. A manga novel?! On my list? See Jason’s awesome post about this (Called “Responsible Escapism in Literature”)

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Reading Reflections: A Book Kingdom

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:21:22 +0000

The figure of my study is round, and has no more bare wall than what is taken up by my table and chair; so that the remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, set upon five rows of shelves round about me. … ’Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I endeavor to make myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society. …

Michel de Montaigne*

Where is your book-kingdom? What is your dream book-kingdom if you don’t have it yet?

I own two ten-year-old four-shelf Target bookcases made of particleboard to house 200+ books. My books are stacked on top of one another and crammed together on the shelves, multiple layers deep. Most of my books were purchased used or are remnants from college days, when I wrote in them and reread them so many times they are creased and/or covers are falling off. Other books are ones I acquired for free and probably will never read. This is not me. Although I’ve been trying hard to not be overly attached to books (for budgetary reasons), I am craving a little corner of the world to be my book-kingdom.

(Note that I don’t provide a picture of my bookcases because I’m so embarrassed!)

How nice it would be to let the books breathe on the shelf in their own space, to organize them how I’d like, and to be able to sit in a comfortable, reclining arm chair as I read and see them all at once!

I tried to find some samples of what I’d like to book-kingdom to be. I can’t find the one I have in my mind. But suffice it to say, it would be an over-the-top gorgeous room like this one with hardwood shelves and with a comfortable armchair or sofa to lounge on and look at my books (all of which will be in wonderful condition, of course). Then again, maybe my dream book-kingdom would more simple and clean, like Claire’s shelves are. (Yes, Claire, even though you have books piled in front of your shelves, it is so much prettier than mine, I love it!)

See others’ home libraries at Your Shelves!

I love the idea of my book shelves being my kingdom, an extension of my personality, and a comfortable place to retreat and enjoy reading the written word. For now, I’ll have to dream.

*quoted from “The Commerce of Reading” in Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading, edited by Steven Gilbar. While I relate to Montaigne’s love of looking at books, he sounds like a snob in this essay. In fact, I’m not convinced he loves reading for reading’s sake. I’m not impressed by his comments that he goes a few months without picking up a book, for example. And his delight in his book-kingdom seems to be more because he knows he’s well-to-do. Nevertheless, his comments about a book-kingdom got me dreaming!

Reading Reflections is a new occasional feature in which I comment on an article or essay about reading.

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Pat the Bunny and Other Interactive Books for Kids

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:09:00 +0000

When I handed Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt to my son after I read it to him in the library, he got a really big kid smile on his face and he held it close to him. It’s a small book, just right for little hands. But the pleasure comes from the interaction: my son can pet the fuzzy bunny, he can lift a cloth to play peek-a-boo with the main character, and he can scratch Daddy’s face. According to Wikipedia, Pat the Bunny is the number 6 all-time best-seller for children’s books, even 50 years after first publication. I’m not surprised, because the textures and the activities make this a book perfect for little kids.

My son loves his “touch-and-feel” books that we have. We have three “Little Scholastic” books: Numbers, Alphabet, and Shapes. These books all have pages with fussy, rough, smooth, or otherwise, texture-filled pages. They usually only keep his attention for about five minutes at a time, but that’s still something, especially in the middle of church when I’m hoping he’ll stay quiet.

We’ve also read Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill. It doesn’t provide textures, but the pop-up interaction made reading fun as we searched for the hiding dog.

When I read Golden Legacy a few weeks ago, I was struck by how books like Pat the Bunny redefined children’s literature in the last century. In 1940, the author had a hard time finding a publisher willing to invest in a book with sandpaper and cottony textures. Now, I can’t imagine my toddler son’s library being complete without books like that!

: Image via Wikipedia

Apparently, even John Locke’s ideas of the early 1700s were urging such books for children.

John Locke was a philosopher and educator born in the 1600s. Apparently, we have him to thank for the plethora of children’s literature these days. According to chapter five of Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature, John Locke was one of the influential philosophers urging a literature for children.

For the first time, “the Lockean narrative revealed the children responding to, absorbing, or reacting against things and actions” (Lerer, page 105). I found it helpful to compare Locke’s concepts to Pilgrim’s Progress, as Lerer does. In Pilgrim’s Progress (which I reviewed in January), the characters only speak rather didactic lectures. The “Lockean” books, on the other hand, were light-hearted stories. And sometimes, that was it.

In summarizing Locke’s Some Thoughts on Education and its influence on children’s literature, Lerer says:

Playthings could also be used to teach the child to read. Letters could be pasted onto dice and polygons; words could become toys; books themselves could become objects of delight. … So influential was Locke’s advocacy of such toys that John Newbery, in the 1740s, offered balls, pincushion, counting stones, and polygons for sale along with his books. … The book becomes one more item in the furnished room of childhood. (page 106-107, emphasis added)

I think it’s good to know where things got a start – and it certainly is interesting to see where children’s literature has come since the didactic days of Pilgrim’s Progress. What would we do without touch-and-feel books for kids?

What are your favorite interactive books for young children? I’ve only mentioned a few here, but there are almost an infinite number of them today!

An Update to My Children’s Literature Project

I’ve been working my way through Seth Lerer’s book Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, and I stagnated in January, mostly because I was packing, moving, and unpacking. I’ve read halfway through the book, and I’m going to get back into a habit of posting more regularly about the chapters. While I’m sure I could sit down and finish reading it now, I’m going slowly because I am also reading some of the “children’s” classics Lerer discusses, such as Pilgrim’s Progress, which I finished in January. I’m currently reading Robinson Crusoe, and then I plan to read Gulliver’s Travel’s and Swiss Family Robinson. Also, while it’s a few chapters away yet in terms of the project, I’m going to begin working my way through Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales; I really enjoyed reading Grimm (although it was rather grim and bloody), so I’d like more fairy tales (just in time for the Once Upon a Time Challenge).

For more detail about this project, see my page dedicated to this project.

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Martel-Harper Challenge (Fourth Quarter 2008)

Rebecca Reid — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:00:55 +0000

I know I’m insane to think about another challenge when I’m already feeling overwhelmed. But I love the concept and the reading list for the Martel-Harper Challenge.

See, Canadian author Yann Martel (of Life of Pi fame) was watching Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a function and started wondering what the prime minster reads.

I tried to bring him close to me with my eyes. Who is this man? What makes him tick? No doubt he is busy. No doubt he is deluded by that busyness. No doubt being Prime Minister fills his entire consideration and froths his sense of busied importance to the very brim. And no doubt he sounds and governs like one who cares little for the arts. But he must have moments of stillness. And so this is what I propose to do: not to educate – that would be arrogant, less than that – to make suggestions to his stillness.

So Martel sends the Prime Minister a book every two weeks. He writes a very interesting letter with each book explaining the political or emotional reasons why he, Martel, has selected the particular book. I think it’s a fascinating concept. And Martel has selected a fascinating list of books. Visit What is Stephen Harper Reading? for the reading list (updated every two weeks) and copies of Martel’s great letters. Stephen Harper’s office sent a form letter response for the first book only.

Dewey has started a challenge for us to read just two of the books from the list each quarter.

See what I’ve read, with links to any reviews, on this page.

I’m going to keep this challenge easy this quarter. I will probably reread Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal (which I read in school years ago) and probably Ayn Rand’s Anthem (which I read for a book club years ago and which I rediscovered post-move); however, after this review of Animal Farm, I may reread that instead. This will change, of course, if Martel sends a “Christmas-y” book in the coming six weeks; in which case I’ll read that.

Incidentally, what do our presidential candidates read? There is an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times Book Review about presidential reading. Check out the Amazon list of the candidates current reading choices here.

What book(s) would you send your political leader to read?

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Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:00:25 +0000

When I heard the concept of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz (monologues given by medieval children), I thought it would be horribly boring. Monologues? I thought. What is fun about monologues? I thought children would be bored by these “Voices from a Medieval Village.”

To my delight, I found Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! to be easy and fun to read. I loved meeting the youth of Schlitz’s created medieval village and I would love to see a group of children perform this collection of monologues: it is a collection of personalities, and it shows how every person in a village has a role, be they rich or poor. I think children would like this book as well!

Monologues of Medieval Life

The students where librarian Laura Amy Schlitz worked were studying the Middle Ages, and she wanted them to perform something – but plays rarely have 17 main parts, and everyone wanted a main part. So she took it upon herself to create a village setting and write monologues or dialogues for all the youths in the class. The end result was Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, and it won the Newbery Award for excellence in Children’s Literature.

In Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, we meet the daughter and nephew of the feudal lord, a plowboy, a doctor’s son, a religious pilgrim, the miller’s son, the village half-wit, the moneylender’s son and a merchant’s daughter, and many other peasants. My favorite was Alice, the shepherdess: her sheep was dying and she sang it back to life, a story based on a real one (in more modern times). My other favorite was Mogg, who, upon her father’s death, learns that the lord has the right to take the best of their livestock, a fact she’s quite angry about; to her and my delight, her story ends happily.

Every person of the village expresses their frustrations and challenges. As we learn of their individual worries and problems, we see how they don’t understand each other. Interspersed throughout the book are short, two-page informational sections clarifying things: Why did villagers dislike the miller? Why was the pilgrim traveling? Why weren’t Jews liked? From what was the runaway fleeing?

I finished the book knowing more about medieval society. I also better appreciated everyone’s role in society today.

Performance as Literature

Schlitz was quite right in her portrayals of Christian medieval youth as “acting” their literature. According to Chapter 3 (“Court, Commerce and Cloister”) of Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, just as religious services were performances, the literature of a medieval childhood was performed.

Children were given lots of responsibilities, from medieval courts of leadership to craft guilds, and each role had literature for the children. The literature of medieval childhood included the earliest lullabies, religious primers, and courtesy/conduct manuals. Much of the learning was through riddles, and these riddles were “dialogue[s] between master and students” (page 63).

Lerer illustrates how medieval literature wasn’t only performance: it was also “romance and adventure, Robin Hood and magic, lullabies and folk rhymes” (page 80). While I certainly don’t wish to have lived as a child in medieval times, it’s refreshing to see, in the history, a literature beginning to develop for children.

It seems quite appropriate that Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! allows modern children to enter the medieval world in a similar way. I’d highly recommend this book for children and parents alike.

For the rest of October, I’ll donate 10 cents to World Food Programme for every (non-spam) comment I receive on any post of Rebecca Reads. See most post on Blog Action Day 2008 here. I’m also donating any proceeds (4%) from my Amazon Store.

I’m giving away boxes of books! Only one more day to enter! Visit here.

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Ingenuity and Authority: Who Really Wrote Aesop’s Fables?

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:00:58 +0000

A few months ago, I read a version of Aesop’s Fables that I found online at Project Gutenberg, written and published in the early 1900s. I thought I’d read Aesop’s Fables.

I was interested, then, to read in chapter two (“Ingenuity and Authority”) of Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter that Aesop’s fables differ markedly from generation and generation. The history of Aesop’s fables (the Aesopica), then, illustrates how the translators changed the message of a translated text, especially in literature for children. This prompted a question: How are the authors’ purposes and translators’ objectives subversively included in modern children’s literature, and does it matter?

Fables as Nursery Lessons

Fables, Lerer explains, were (and are) the child’s first “lesson in the arts of the literary imagination” (page 37).

[Fables] take parts for wholes, draw on particulars for generalizations, make mute creatures speak. Their status in the nursery or in the classroom rests not simply on moral or didactic goals, but on their metaphorical enchantment. … the heart of the Aesopic fable is a form of impersonation: of animating the inanimate, of turning abstractions into realities. (page 37, page 38)

Even the most original of the Aesopica had some didactic goals. Lerer explains that “Aesop became a touchstone for an understanding of life itself” (page 38), and Aristophanes, Plato, and other writers often referred to Aesop in their texts as underlying examples of a basic nursery education. Hearing Aesop, then, appears comparable to a modern child learning to sing the ABCs. It was an understood part of growing up.

Aesop as Religious Lessons

Through the centuries, various translations of the Aesopica were made, each drawing on the vernacular language of the age. Following the advent of Christianity, translations of Aesop began to emphasize different aspects: instead of being moral life tales, they became Christian parables with religious undertones. Further, Aesopic texts for children in medieval schools included commentaries to explain correct behavior.

Some of the Aesopica still retained a sense of literacy, and some later translators maintained a sense of “wit” rather than “the heavy hand of the school teacher” (page 46). But the bottom line is this: “Translation is transmission” (page 47). With the advent of the printing press, Aesop was often the first text printed, and the translator could rewrite it as he or she desired.

Do We Need Aesop Today?

Obviously, with the advent of a further children’s literature, children can look anywhere for “metaphorical enchantment.” But when reading Aesop a few months ago, I was surprised to recognize familiar stories and semi-familiar characters.

Lerer also recollects how the Aesopica has been reincorporated into other literature: Hamlet’s conversation with the skull, Yorick, for example, has shadows of Aesop (“scattered fragments of an old tradition,” says Lerer, page 56). Aesop speaks today through such fragments, and the new metaphors are the ones familiar to this generation. You probably have read remnants of the Aesopica without ever picking up a book labeled “Aesop’s Fables.”

Further, I was struck by the brief history Lerer recounted. The translator’s and publisher’s agendas transformed the fables into a new literature, thus calling in to question the authenticity of the “original” fable itself. Each new translation became its own work of literature, designed to meet the needs of the children of that age, as the “translator” deemed appropriate.

For me, this calls to mind, then, the various recent debates about works for children today that are obviously created with an agenda. As I haven’t read some of those debated books, I can’t give an opinion of those. I don’t have answers, only questions, and I think it leads to an interesting discussion.

Looking back on the history of Aesop, I wonder: Does it matter why a work was created for children? What is the value of didactic or even subtle “agenda” literature? Did children in the medieval ages know, care, or notice why and how the Aesop they read was created? Would we, as parents, resent the agenda of the translator, and if so, how can we pay attention to the agenda of the author today?

For the rest of October, I’ll donate 10 cents to World Food Programme for every (non-spam) comment I receive on any post of Rebecca Reads. See most post on Blog Action Day 2008 here. I’m also donating any proceeds (4%) from my Amazon Store.

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Speak, Child: The Illiad as the Infancy of Children’s Literature

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:00:40 +0000

In his first chapter (“Speak, Child”) of Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Seth Lerer discusses the “infancy” of children’s literature. Such a study requires a review of children’s education, as that is the basis for children’s literature. Lerer discusses the classics (the “really old classics,” as I’ve dubbed them on this blog) that were the basis of education in the ancient world.

I took note of two elements within his discussion of the classics. First, children’s education was based on recitation and memorization. Also, children learned from extracts of The Illiad and The Odyssey, and later The Aeneid, works that even then were “adult” literature.

Memorization and Recitation

The first point caused me to ponder: Do children memorize in school today? What is the benefit of memorization?

Interestingly, Lerer argues that study and memorization of the classics helped give children a voice. They began by memorizing Homer, and progressed to writing their own recitations. Memorization, then, provided a way for them to find their own voice.

I remember memorizing some Robert Frost poems in eighth grade. Even now, any time I’m walking through a forest or driving down an autumn tree-lined road, I find myself thinking, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood….”

Likewise, in the past few days, I noticed others around me reciting instead of finding their own words: movie lines, commercials, and song lyrics. So even today we memorize and recite to find our own voice.

The Illiad as Children’s Literature

But children in ancient days weren’t quoting advertisements: they were memorizing Homer. The classic texts were what helped children learn to speak in an adult world. Lerer summarizes:

…what these texts taught were not simply moral maxims, but habits of control. Children could be masters in the house; yet children of the salves, too, could achieve beyond their birth to gain a path of honor through their merit. … nec generi, sed virtuti. [not according to birth, but according to merit] (page 34).

In other words, Homer helped kids see they could be anything when they grew up. I don’t know much about social class in antiquity, so I don’t know how accurate my generalization is. Nevertheless, it’s empowering to think that Homer could have that effect. But it’s also got me thinking: what literature might be appropriate for children?

Of course, children in ancient days didn’t have any other “children’s literature,” so to speak. Certainly, children’s literature today empowers children to speak, gives them a voice of power and mastery, and helps them recognize the opportunities they have in the future. But Lerer stresses that these works for adults were also the literature and the textbook that children relied upon.

Children were able to understand and take things away from otherwise adult texts. Note that they didn’t read the entire work (The Illiad, for example, is very violent), but they read extracts that were applicable to them. If we ask our children to read extracts from todays adult texts, might they still resonate with them?

Relevant Today?

Reading Lerer’s overview of these classics as a part of childhood education prompted me to begin the Really Old Classics Challenge. I am not familiar with many of the classics he discussed, and I’d never have thought of them in terms of children’s literature. I’m curious.

When I read The Illiad, I imagine it will be a struggle. There are challenging concepts and language within them. I imagine they were challenging to adults in ancient days. And yet, portions of the works were applicable to children then, and they memorized portions for their learning.

I’m not an educator, and my only child is a year old. I’m not calling for the addition of The Illiad to the first-grade curriculum. I recognize that the language of The Illiad is rather complicated for anyone today: this is a different age with different myths and traditions.

That said, I’m sure that modern literature has similar extracts that may resonate with children. What modern literature for adults might have portions that resonate with children? And should we encourage our children to memorize literature? Does memorizing extracts empower children with a voice? I wonder: if we expect more of our children, will they rise to the occasion? Why not try them, and see?

After reading this chapter, I’ve added a few things to my “to read” list:

The Illiad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
The Aeneid by Virgil
Confessions by St. Augustine

Related posts:

The End of Publishing?

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:00:47 +0000

Chris at book-a-rama brought a most interesting article to my attention.

“The End: Have We Reached The End of Book Publishing As We Know It?” is a fascinating look at the publishing industry and struggles it is facing. While I don’t think publishing is going to ever end, I thought the article had some great insights into book publishing. This article reminded me of some things I’ve been thinking about recently; that is, why do we read what we read?

Here are some of my thoughts after reading this article:

Book publishers are commercial companies, out to make money. Therefore, they choose books because of commercial appeal, not necessarily because it’s quality literature.
A quote from the article: “What I’ve heard from editors is, ‘My judgment doesn’t count any longer.’ They didn’t flock to publishing because they want to publish Danielle Steel.” In other words, editors don’t have much say in book selection. Danielle Steel gets published, while better authors might not. (I was an editor for a short time before I realized how much I don’t want to read most modern fiction.)
Chic lit writers (for example) get better book deals than do former Pulitzer Prize winners. What has the world come to? That seems a sad commentary on what people read. It’s not that all Pulitzer Prize writing is superb or that all “chic lit” is generic, but I’d think there should be a standard of writing that we expect when we pick up a book. It’s a shame that monetary decisions get in the way of quality literature being discovered (or quality writing being edited properly). (For me, at least, “chic lit” stories are meant to be watched, as in “chick flick.”)
Books by bloggers really are not the next big thing. Sorry, folks, but it’s not going to happen. Bloggers are not going to save the publishing industry,

The bottom line:

Simply because a book has been published does not mean that (1) the author made any money or (2) it is worth reading. These days, especially, publishing a business venture!

Why do you read what you read? I know I didn’t answer the question myself, but I find it interesting to think about what “a published book” really is and how it got between two covers (or not).

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Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Rebecca Reid — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 06:18:49 +0000

I was dressing my 10-month-old son on his bedroom floor the other evening when he started reaching up. I saw his fingers brush the edge of the orange cover of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, which was on the edge of the second-lowest shelf. Once he was fully clothed in pajamas, I sat him up and pulled the book off the shelf.

“In the great green room,” I began, setting him on my knee.

He stopped squirming and clapped his hands together, ready for his story.

My son was 3½-months-old when my mother sent him Goodnight Moon for Christmas. At that point, it was one of the five children’s books that was not 16,000 miles away in storage. I read it to him every night for months.

At first, I thought I’d get tired of reading him the same story every night. After all, at four months, I know he wasn’t really listening or looking at the pictures. Reading to him was a struggle for a few months, especially when he started “eating” the books (literally taking a bite out of one book). But nights like the other night, nights when he is excited to read, reinforce the need to keep reading.

Besides, I’ve found that I love to read Goodnight Moon. Yes, every night the little bunny says goodnight to the same objects in his same green room in the same order. But it is a different experience every night. Some nights I point out the toys in the pictures. Some nights we read slowly. Some squirmy nights we read very quickly. Some nights we read backwards because my son wants to turn the pages himself.

The words are simple, and the rhymes are lilting and gentle. Goodnight Moon is a lullaby.

Goodnight stars.
Goodnight air.
Goodnight noises everywhere.

I recently purchased Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer. I have only just begun to read it, but so far I enjoy it very much. It is a textbook about children’s reading, and, as the subtitle states, Lerer is following the child-aged reader through history, rather than the writer, as many such books do.

As I read the introduction, I felt shivers of excitement as he talked about the power children’s literature can have on a child’s life. Lerer wrote:

Even the most ordinary prose becomes magical when read aloud at bedtime. And even the simplest-seeming of our children’s books teaches something elegant and deep.

Then he quotes Leonard Marcus’ thoughts about Goodnight Moon. Marcus wrote the following in Margaret Wise Brown’s biography (and this makes me want to read the biography):

Goodnight Moon is a supremely comforting evocation of the companionable objects of the daylight world. It is also a ritual preparation for a journey beyond that world, a leave-taking of the known for the unknown world of darkness and dreams. … [I]t is partly spoken in the voice of the child, who takes possession of that world by naming its particulars all over again, addressing them directly, one by one, as though each were alive, and bidding each goodnight. … The sense of an ending descends gradually, like sleep.

Lerer expands the same concept to all of children’s literature: that cataloging and recognizing the familiar are our children’s regular stepping stones into the world of the unfamiliar.

I happen to like looking at things deeply and figuring out why we like what we do and why some things are more appealing than others. That’s the English major in me, I guess.

You, on the other hand, may think that this is reading far too much into a simple children’s story.

Regardless, I hope you take the time to sit down and read something to your child. If you don’t know where to start, I’d suggest Goodnight Moon. That’s what we’re going to read, again, tonight.

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Stuart Little Was a Banned Book

Rebecca Reid — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:00:51 +0000

The New Yorker has an interesting article this week about the development of literature for children and E.B. White’s writing of Stuart Little. Did you know that after it was published in 1945, Stuart Little was banned by many libraries? I haven’t read Stuart Little since I was a child, but I hadn’t realized that and I couldn’t think why it would have been banned. Why would anyone ban a seemingly harmless book about a mouse-child?

The reasons behind the ban are surprising. Banning Stuart Little was a sort of political battle between two woman in the newly developing field of children’s literature. How many other “bans” on books are simply personal?

If you are interested in children’s literature, banned books, or Stuart Little in particular, check out the article. It made me want to reread Stuart Little and see what the fuss was about.

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Political Reading

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:00:08 +0000

As I mentioned recently, I minored in “International Studies” in college. I took courses in political history, U.S. international relations, anthropology, and sociology. I also took one economics class, but I don’t recall a thing about it. My minor was too broad, because I don’t remember very much, and it’s only been five years. I also didn’t read well.

When people started mentioning magazines they read for Weekly Geeks, I realized that I used to read The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other political newspapers and magazines on a regular basis. Since graduation, I haven’t read them. But I greatly enjoyed political subjects: Why don’t I make time to read those things?

For me, this goes back to my ability to read. I’ve lost my attention span and I’m caught up in the quickness of Internet articles: why read the news when I can skim the headlines? It takes a large attention span to read Foreign Affairs, and I was ashamed that it was hard to read through an article by Secretary of State Condelezza Rice at first glance. I had to force myself to concentrate. I certainly shouldn’t find it so challenging: I studied these kinds of things in school!

Something Condelezza Rice wrote stuck with me:

We know that today’s headlines are rarely the same as history’s judgments.

I think my problems with reading newspapers stem from the fact that I’m not interested in “today’s headlines.” I’m much more interested in the big picture, the entire history of these things. My courses were mostly looking at the history of various political issues, not the modern-day situations, although those were an aspect of the courses I took.

I feel the need to read and study the events in the last 5-10 years of politics so I can understand where the world stands now. I feel very clumsy. And yet, I still don’t really look forward to “today’s headlines.” History’s judgments are so much more interesting.

Which do you find most interesting: today’s headlines or history’s judgments?

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Is Reading Online is Making Us Stupid?

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:00:17 +0000

There is an interesting article in The Atlantic about reading and our changing reading habits, thanks to the Internet.

I think the author has some great points: internet has changed the way I read, and that’s why I’m feeling a need to really read deeply right now.

In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive. …

In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking. If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.

What do you think? Is reading on the Internet making you less able to read?

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HTR&W Prologue: Why Read?

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:52:06 +0000

I’m giving away a copy of How to Read and Why to someone joining my personal challenge. Read my discussion of the preface for more information.

This is a very long post; I’m breaking my own rules of length because I spent a long time reading and pondering Bloom’s prologue, and I have a lot of thoughts about it. I’ve included a summary at the end under “How Should I Read?” if you don’t care to read all of my post. However, I hope it may be a “difficult pleasure” to read the entire post.

So Many Books, So Little Time

Harold Bloom begins his prologue to How to Read and Why by asking simply, “Why read?” He points out that:

You can read merely to pass the time, or you can read with an overt urgency, but eventually you will read against the clock. (page 21)

This just reiterates what I’ve always known: there are so many books, and there is so little time.

Why Read Fiction?

Bloom argues that we all should have urgency about us when reading and we should determine why it is that we read. For himself, he claims,

I turn to reading as a solitary praxis, rather than as an educational enterprise. (page 21)

At the same time, he confesses that the best reading is “never an easy pleasure.” So why do we or should we read in our solitary time? He explores this question while also exploring five principles of reading fiction. Bloom argues that when we accept these principles, reading in that solitary time is more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Principle One

Clear your mind of cant. … [C]ant in this sense is speech overflowing with pious platitudes, the peculiar vocabulary of a sect or coven. (page 23)

In other words, don’t read with a specific ideology in mind. Finding support of ideology should not be the point of reading fiction. I find it hard sometimes when I know a novel is about a certain perspective. But Bloom’s counsel is wise: how can I let the novel speak to me if I am busy searching and taking notes on the sought after issues? Better to let the situation speak to me through the story. In after fact, I can find themes that stand out to me personally, not those that are dictated by society.

Bloom later emphasizes:

To read human sentiments in human language you must be able to read humanly, with all of you. You are more than an ideology whatever your convictions …(page 28)

I like Bloom’s emphasis that reading is not and should not be ideological but rather personal, human. So there, college English professors!

Principle Two

Do not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how you read. Self-improvement is a large enough project for your mind and spirit: there are no ethics of reading. (page 24)

I can’t lecture others via a book; a book that changes me might not change someone else.

I think that just about summarizes why I hesitate to give book recommendations; people either think I’m crazy because they hated it or completely agree with me as to a book’s merit. I can never predict.

Principle Three

A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light. … You need not fear that the freedom of your development as a reader is selfish, because if you become an authentic reader, then the response to your labors will confirm you as an illumination to others. (page 24)

Oh, I love this concept! Bloom is suggesting that if I read authentically and sincerely and I love it, others will be inspired by me. Giving what I read to others might not inspire them, but if I was inspired, my sincerity might be inspiring to those around me. Thank you, Mr. Bloom, for inspiring me to read more!

And yet, lest I get too excited, he does counsel:

The pleasures of reading indeed are selfish rather than social. You cannot directly improve anyone else’s life by reading better or more deeply. (page 22)

With those words, I must remember that reading to inspire won’t work, but reading for myself is what reading is all about. Reading is by nature solitary and, by default, reading will help me alone.

Principle Four

One must be an inventor to read well. … We read, frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own. (page 25)

I think that just perfectly summarizes why I read. I think others are so much more original; and yet, I find myself in their creative worlds of words.

Principle Five

[We read for] recovery of the ironic … (page 25)

This threw me off at first: what does he mean by irony? He means simple metaphor.

Irony, noun. 2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance (definition courtesy merriam-webster.com)

Bloom’s following pages discussing irony made me want to pick up the nearest novel and get back to the world of irony. I love the fact that we live in a world where things don’t always have to be literal. We say one thing but mean another. Such irony is one reason why we read novels: to escape to a world of metaphor and make-believe.

Irony demands a certain attention span, and the ability to suspend antithetical ideas, even when they collide with one another. Strip irony away from reading, and it loses at once all discipline and all surprise.

Reading Bloom’s explanation of irony, I fell in love with reading all over again.

How Should I Read?

I love Bloom’s concepts for reading (interpreted and reworded by me):

Reading should be done without ideology in mind
Reading that inspires me might not inspire you
I can’t change anyone else by reading, but I might inspire someone
Reading invents new worlds of more creativity in the reader
I should read to be not literal (ironic)

Bloom writes many quotable things; I could just quote the entire prologue. If you have this book, read the prologue with a pencil in hand.

He writes about why we should read and how we should approach it: personally and humanly, not as a student at a university. That is a censure for me, since I was thinking I’d approach his book and the recommended works as university texts. His point is that we shouldn’t read for that kind of reason.

He quotes Sir Francis Bacon:

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. (page 21)

And then he “weighs in” himself:

We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading of the now much-abused traditional canon is the search for a difficult pleasure. (page 28-29; emphasis added)

“The search for a difficult pleasure.” I love that phrase because it so accurately captures the challenge of reading a good book. Sometimes reading is painful, and I’ve read some books recently that have been hard to read and yet beautiful at the same time.

Bloom claims “we certainly owe mediocrity nothing,” something he realizes now that the clock is winding down on his life. What have I read recently that has been mediocre, and why did I read it?

Ultimately, why should we read? Here’s part of Bloom’s final answer:

Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads. (page 29)

Why do you read? What is reading well?

Other Thoughts:

Sophisticated Dorkiness

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HTR&W Preface and A Challenge

Rebecca Reid — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:43:11 +0000

I like to read. I’ve decided it’s time I learn how to read.

I don’t know when I first figured out how to read the written word, but I’ve always been a reader. When I was young, I’d ride my bicycle to the library and return home with my backpack full of books. I’d devour each one and then return to the library for my next batch. I was a compulsive page-turner, finishing a book so I could read the next. Once I entered high school and then college, my “compulsive” reading slowed to only “assigned” reading. I was trying to pass my classes. I did well, and I graduated. It’s been a few years since school. Last year, I realized I was back to my schoolgirl habit: “page-turning,” not reading.

I realized I wasn’t really ingesting the books I read. How can I really “read” a book, even fiction, to get something out of it?

Enter: How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom. HTR&W is a very opinionated “guide” to reading. I’ve already read parts of it, but I’ve decided to slow down, reread it, and internalize it: a challenge to myself to learn to read all over again by reviewing Bloom’s selection of “examples and instances.”

Bloom says in the preface:

This book teaches how to read and why, proceeding by a multitude of examples and instances: poems short and long; stories and novels and plays. The selections [in this book] should not be interpreted as an exhaustive list of what to read, but rather as a sampling of works that illustrate why to read. (emphasis added)

He discusses each work on his list in just a page or two, discussing what makes it good, what he does to improve his reading of it, and why he considers it a work worth reading. I’m not exactly sure what he says about each work because I haven’t read his book yet! But I intend to analyze just what he’s saying and try to apply it to my own reading of these same works.

Bloom began his preface by saying:

There is no single way to read well, though there is a prime reason why we should read. Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?

He suggests that we each read for ourselves, and therefore there is no “correct” way to read. However, since we’re all still searching for ourselves, he suggests we could use some guidance when we approach literature so we can get the “deepest and wildest” pleasures from reading. I like that idea.

While he’s obviously going to spend the entire book discussing why and what to read and how to approach it, I love what he says in the preface about reading:

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you, because it is, at least in my experience, the most healing of pleasures. It returns you to otherness, whether in yourself or in friends, or in those who may become friends. Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness. We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.

Exactly.

I’m going to read Bloom’s list of works (stories, poems, novels, and plays) along with his book discussing them. I’m going to treat HTR&W like a textbook and Bloom’s narration as a teacher’s voice: I won’t always agree with him and he’s opinionated, but I will hopefully learn something by the end. I’m sure, as in all reading lists, I won’t agree with his judgment of excellence of all of these works, and there is something conceited about his attitude that I can and should learn to read in the ways he suggests. But no matter: I look forward to learning how to make my reading a more personal experience.

I hereby give myself a personal challenge to read all of the works on the How to Read and Why list.

I don’t know how many people, if any, might be interested in joining in this challenge. If you do want to join with me in reading the HTR&W list, let me know by leaving a comment, either to this post or to the reading list. Keep track on your blog, if you have one, and I’ll read along to learn with you as well.

Besides, I’ll randomly select one person who’s interested in reading along and send them a copy of How to Read and Why at the end of June. So if you’re the only interested in reading with me, you’ll win!

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