Monthly Archives: January 2012

A Year in Books/Day 6: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters

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  • Title: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters
  • Edited by: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower & Charles Foley
  • Year Published: 2007 (The Penguin Press New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2011
  • Source: Dollar Tree
  • About: A biography-through-letters of the struggling medical man turned world famous writer.
  • Motivation: Letter writing, once the definitive mode of communication for millions, is a nearly obsolete art. It is also the straightest path to the real feelings, opinions and events of a person’s life. When creating Sherlock Holmes is only one of many odd and diverse accomplishments for that person, then the straightest path is by far the best.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 192: “Dear Mrs. Boismaison- Though I am forced to send in my bills at regular intervals in order to keep my books square, I need hardly say that there is not the slightest reason for your settling them until it entirely suits your convenience. Hoping that you are keeping well, I remain Very sincerely yours A. Conan Doyle, MB CM”.
  • Happiness Scale: 10 (9 for content with a bonus point awarded because I read the
    Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) English: Arth...

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    book on my honeymoon)

A Year in Books/Day 5: Dictator Style

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  • Title: Dictator Style Lifestyle’s of the World’s Most Colorful Despots
  • Author: Peter York (Foreword by Douglas Coupland)
  • Year Published: 2006 (Chronicle Books LLC)
  • Year Purchased: 2008/2009
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: It’s hardly a surprise to discover that some of history’s worst dictators, egomaniacs all, also had really execrable aesthetic preferences. By taking us behind the curtains into seldom seen private sectors, this book manages to add a new layer of psychological insight into the minds of these historical horrors. The old adage that money (and an obscene amount of power) does not buy taste or happiness has never been better proven.
  • Motivation: I am a sucker for the all-too-rare pairing of history and style. And the cheetah-print cover didn’t hurt.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 2: “An enthusiasm for railway travel may be Victorian, but (Porfirio)
    Porfirio Diaz

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    Diaz’s carriage is more suggestive of the kind of Texan whorehouse we see in Westerns. It is smothered in textiles: silk damask upholstery, squishy cushions, elaborate fringing, and there’s a raised ceiling with fanciful stencilling and small arched windows inset in the roof-the sort of thing you might find in a traditional nineteenth-century sunroom. There’s a large oval mirror in the panelling, a lot of shiny wood and a hanging brass lamp. It’s ideal for the secret assignations of an elderly Latin American soldier who liked to play away from home.”

  • Happiness Scale: 9

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 4th-8th January

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At ASPL, one of the refrains that you will hear echoing in the background like a parade ground tattoo is that we love dead writers. They are, after all, the reason that we came to be such insatiable reader-writers. How their very existence in a world full of untold possibilities helped us make the journey from there to here is the stuff for another story. Today, we are here to launch a new feature in their honor called, perhaps a bit too straightforwardly, The Dead Writers Round-Up. This is a glorified birth-and-death type of history for those of you interested in such niche oddities. The haphazard nature of the life and death cycle gives us some interesting juxtapositions; perhaps proving that, if viewed in just a certain way, the Fates have a sense of humor. Or that we are lit geeks to the extreme. Either way, please enjoy this first edition of The Dead Writers Round-Up.

  • Max Eastman was born on 1/4/1883. “The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.”
  • Albert Camus died on 1/4/1960. “A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”
  • T.S. Eliot died on 1/4/1965. “Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.”
  • Christopher Isherwood died on 1/4/1986. Isherwood wrote the novel ‘Goodbye Berlin’ (1939), which in turn was made into a Broadway play (‘I am a Camera’ by John Van Druten) before eventually being immortalized on both stage and screen as ‘Cabaret’ .
  • Frances (Fanny) Burney died on 1/6/1840. Although a celebrated novelist and playwright during her own very long lifetime, today she is best known for keeping a private journal for an astonishing 70 years.
  • Carl Sandburg was born on 1/6/1878. The Illinois-born poet was friends with Marilyn Monroe the last few years of her life.
  • Kahlil Gibran was born on 1/6/1883. “All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
  • Alan Watts was born on 1/6/1916. “A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.
  • Zora Neale Hurston was born on 1/7/1891. “It’s a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.”
  • John Berryman died on 1/7/1972. “I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.”
  • Wilkie Collins was born on 1/8/1824. The Victorian novelist is best known for his immensely popular mystery novels, ‘The Woman in White’ and ‘The Moonstone’.
  • Storm Jameson was born on 1/8/1891. The English writer lived to be 95.
  • Paul Verlaine died on 1/8/1896. “Tears fall in my heart like the rain on the town.”

A Year in Books/Day 4: Thorndike Century Junior Dictionary

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William Alexander Craigie
Image via Wikipedia-William Craigie.
  • Title: Thorndike Century Junior Dictionary A Child’s Dictionary of the English Language Revised Edition
  • Author: E.L. Thorndike
  • Year Published: 1942 (a revision of the original 1935 edition/published by E.L. Thorndike)
  • Year Purchased: This copy was purchased new in 1942 for my 10-year-old Grandmother.
  • Source: This book was handed down to me by Grandma when I was 5.
  • About:The dictionary was compiled by E.L. Thorndike and 2 very impressive advisory committees, whose lists included Sir William Craigie (the third editor of the Oxford English Dictionary).
  • Motivation: I started reading dictionaries (quickly followed by any reference book within the grasp of my thin fingers) shortly before starting school. I have read entire volumes during otherwise boring road trips. I still prefer the tactile, almost sensuous quality of well-worn reference pages over the most comprehensive on-line compendium. Someone should coin a phrase for that special quality one feels when meandering through a dictionary; how the heart races when the eyes skip, so quickly, from word to word, roaming over territory new and old. E.L. Thorndike’s great work for schoolchildren made that possible for me.
  • Times Read: Countless.
  • Random Excerpt/Page vi: “To make a dictionary that comes near to this ideal requires not only adequate knowledge of the English language, but also expert scientific knowledge of children’s minds, and their needs in reading, hearing, and using words. It also requires ingenuity and thoughtfulness for every detail of every word.”
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts.

     

A Year in Books/Day 3: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large

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Eldre George Sand, fotografi

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  • Title: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large
  • Author: Belinda Jack
  • Year Published: 1999 (Alfred A. Knopf New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: An absorbing, fast-paced telling of the iconoclastic French novelist’s controversial life.
  • Motivation: I’ve a thing for biographies of lady writers. No, really, it’s almost an obsession.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 214: “According to Sand, “The experiment failed completely. I cried with pain, disgust and despair. Instead of finding a friendship that would allow me to unburden my feelings of resentment and discouragement, I found only bitter and frivolous mockery. That was all, and the whole story has been summed up in…words that I did not say [it was nothing], that Mme Dorval neither betrayed nor invented, and which bring little honour to the imagination of M. Dumas.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8 1/2

Inspiration Board-2 January 2012

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Alfred Stieglitz

Image by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

  1. My Faraway One Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (Edited by Sarah Greenough)-Volume 1, covering the years 1915-1933, gathers nearly 800 pages of correspondence between one of the most celebrated creative couples of the 20th-Century. As another uncertain new year dawns, I am drawing inspiration from those who lived life close to the bone.
  2. Pack Up by Eliza Doolittle-3 minutes of upbeat, infectious fun with an unexpected retro bluesy hook by Lloyd Wade.
  3. Berries-The lush colour of ripe berries is popping up everywhere in stores this Winter. I purchased 2 pairs of deep raspberry shoes over the weekend. An explosive kick of colour is just what I need to get through the next few slushy, salty, grey months.
  4. The Winter Classic-As if on cue this morning, the sky over the Queen City burst open and shook out millions of fat, wet snowflakes just in time for the Winter Classic. Played this afternoon in Philadelphia between the Flyers and the New York Rangers, the annual open-air hockey fight-out is one of the few redeeming features of this coldest of seasons.
    English: Photo portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe by...

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A Year in Books/Day 2: The Matinee Idols

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  • Title: The Matinee Idols
  • Author: David Carroll
  • Year Published: 1972 (Galahad Books New York)
  • Year Purchased: 1990’s
  • Source: Book Harbor, Columbus, Ohio
  • About: This slim volume covers all of the great American and British matinee idols of theatre and film, from John Wilkes Booth (yes, that one) to John Gilbert.
  • Motivation: I’ve loved all things related to silent cinema and the theatre since I was a child. It paid off because, as an adult, I have dedicated a meaty chunk of my professional output to the former.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 71: “Murmurs of excitement are heard in the audience as he displays a mounting fury over Fedora’s cross-examination. Fedora cajoles him, pleads with him, screams at him, then accuses him directly of the murder, but he denies the crime. Fedora throws herself at his feet and the scene builds to a point of almost unbearable tension. Finally he snaps.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 1: February House

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  • Title: February House
  • Author: Sherill Tippins
  • Year Published: 2005 (Houghton Mifflin Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2008
  • Source: Daedalus Books
  • About: The true story of how Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, Benjamin Britten, Gypsy Rose Lee and W.H. Auden all came to live under one roof, in a Brooklyn brownstone, during the early 1940’s.
  • Motivation: The combination of Auden and McCullers, and the quirky communal living aspect, was irresistible.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 111: “And now-running after the fire engine, laughing, and shivering in the night air-Carson experienced the moment of illumination for which she had been praying. The key to her novel, the image that would allow her to continue, had emerged at last. “I caught Gypsy’s arm,” she would recall, “and out of breath said, ‘Frankie is in love with her brother and his bride and wants to become a member of the wedding!’
  • Happiness Scale: 7

Project 366: A Year in Books

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My goal for A Small Press Life’s version of Project 365 366 is a simple one: to catalogue the vital statistics of one book per day from my collection. I have long been openly fascinated by the psychology of book buying. My own history is full of a long list of complex motivations; I have never, to the best of my memory, chosen a book due to boredom or indifference. As a life-long passionate reader, a sense of excitement has accompanied every ring of the cash register. As the year wears on, I hope to occasionally spotlight others’ books as well. Each entry will show basic information, a random excerpt and a photograph.