Piles and piles of books
I apologize in advance... I am phoning it in a little bit today. It's been a busy week full of appointments and I have hardly had time to sit down and read anything.
My reading energy has been spent cleaning ...piles of books, that is, but still cleaning and not reading. A few days ago in a fit of manic energy I cleaned my apartment, which to anyone who's been there can tell you means that although there may have been some dusting and vacuuming and dish-washing, really the bulk of tha action was in re-arranging piles of books. The three-tiered system in my bedroom went through a pretty devastating evaluation process resulting in a pretty significant shift in titles most close in line to be read. Now Denis Johnson and Valerie Martin sit in the hot seat.
Out in the front of my apartment my dining table has revealed its surface once again. It's probably been months since I last ate off of it, but no more! And what's more exciting than rediscovering an eating surface that enables one to eat and read at the same time?? The coffee table really didn't cut it - too much leaning over or holding the book in one hand while operating a utensil with the other. Danger!
What I have been reading this morning after seeing a review of it on Salon.com is Terry Eagleton's new book The Meaning of Life. The bad boy of Literary Criticism has crafted a long essay that seems to be trying to fill the niche that Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit did two years ago.
Eagleton is most known for his work Literary Theory: An Introduction, but he's made some ripples lately with a pretty scathing review of Richard Dawkin's bestseller The God Delusion. This new work is certainly not as polarizing, but he doesn't shy away from controversy. Eagleton writes this philosophical tract just like you'd expect a Literary Theorist to. It's all about the words. But, he remains adept and skillful with these words and really quite accessible, too.
My reading energy has been spent cleaning ...piles of books, that is, but still cleaning and not reading. A few days ago in a fit of manic energy I cleaned my apartment, which to anyone who's been there can tell you means that although there may have been some dusting and vacuuming and dish-washing, really the bulk of tha action was in re-arranging piles of books. The three-tiered system in my bedroom went through a pretty devastating evaluation process resulting in a pretty significant shift in titles most close in line to be read. Now Denis Johnson and Valerie Martin sit in the hot seat.
Out in the front of my apartment my dining table has revealed its surface once again. It's probably been months since I last ate off of it, but no more! And what's more exciting than rediscovering an eating surface that enables one to eat and read at the same time?? The coffee table really didn't cut it - too much leaning over or holding the book in one hand while operating a utensil with the other. Danger!
What I have been reading this morning after seeing a review of it on Salon.com is Terry Eagleton's new book The Meaning of Life. The bad boy of Literary Criticism has crafted a long essay that seems to be trying to fill the niche that Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit did two years ago.Eagleton is most known for his work Literary Theory: An Introduction, but he's made some ripples lately with a pretty scathing review of Richard Dawkin's bestseller The God Delusion. This new work is certainly not as polarizing, but he doesn't shy away from controversy. Eagleton writes this philosophical tract just like you'd expect a Literary Theorist to. It's all about the words. But, he remains adept and skillful with these words and really quite accessible, too.
1 Comments:
I can attest to the dining table at the Akre abode. And I would like to say that it's been closer to year since I saw the surface...a-hem. Many a time I would stare at the piles upon piles of books carefully stacked on top of the table, wanting to reach out and grab one for my reading pleasure, but terrified that I would forever ruin the triple A system of book stacking, so I would slowly back away. Until last Friday, I finally got the nerve up and grabbed a book. All in all, basically when it comes to trying to decide what book to read, go with Alexis's opinion. She can't and won't steer you wrong, she knows her books inside and out, and ask her about her cute t-shirt "reading is sexy" that she wears when she ever so thoughtfully restacks her piles of read and need to be read books.
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