Quote of the Week

"These are the moments I live for. I put up with all the other crap just to get seconds like this. The moments when you know the world is a better place than advertised."

-Jakita Wagner in Planetary #4 by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday

PS - "Quote of the Week" just indicates a favorite literary quote of mine that I decided to post online that week. It doesn't necessarily mean it was a phrase used in lit that actual week.

A Brief Interruption

I'm thinking about taking the weekend off from reading VALIS. Since it is also the Thanksgiving weekend, I think it would be appropriate to instead read Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates instead.

Sarah Vowell is an author, actress and all-around renaissance woman. I have also read her books Assasination Vacation and The Partly Cloudy Patriot. She's funny, erudite and easy to read. And considering the fact that The Wordy Shipmates is about the early days of Puritanism in the new world, it may be a perfect fit for the holiday weekend.

I'm also taking Thursday and Friday off from the blog, but will return on Saturday, when I will resume our regularly scheduled programming!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

The Masterpiece Years

Read this fascinating article about Anne R. Dick's new memoir over at the New York Times about Philip K. Dick and the years she was married to him - including the era in which he wrote The Man in the High Castle.

I finished The Man in the High Castle back in September, and I'm still wondering whether I read the book, or whether I'm merely a character in a book, reading that book, in an alternate universe, being read by someone else. Seriously.

You should probably check that one out too.

Sinclair Lewis

Last night I bought a copy of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, based mostly on the recommendation of Amazon.com, as it is thematically related to 1984.

It was something of a discovery for me, as I hadn't really noticed Sinclair Lewis before. I'm not stupid, but it is entirely possible that I mistook him for Upton Sinclair. Either way, I read the introduction to It Can't Happen Here and found it encouraging.

According to the introduction, his early works such as Main Street, Babbitt, and Elmer Gantry dealt with themes that "hold a mirror up to the parochialism and provincialism" of the time and his readers "flinched at his representations of their middle-class lives."

I think I need to look into this Sinclair Lewis; I like what I've heard so far...

Internet Favorites

Hey, everybody! Yesterday I reorganized the righthand column on the blog. It was just a small change - I added a list of links to some of my favorite internet websites.

First up is Amazon.com. There's no two ways about it: I have a very serious Amazon.com addiction. (One of the reasons I started this blog was to give myself a forum in which I could discuss books, instead of just buying more!) I find it hard to believe anyone sophisticated enough to find my blog doesn't know what Amazon.com is all about, so let's just leave it at that for now.

I read io9.com everyday. It is a website dedicated to science and science fiction - two things I love to read about. It is updated frequently and challenges me to think in different ways about the world all the time. Please to enjoy.

Next up is NPR Books. I listen to NPR everyday in the car going to and from work. Their take on books (and music, IMHO) has been on fire since early summer. Case in point: the recent story they did about Kristin Kimball and her book, The Dirty Life. It's a real-life Green Acres story, from girly-girl to hog butcher. Check it out.

The Prairie Archives in Springfield, Illinois is one of the finest used book stores in Central Illinois.

The Rochester Public Library is my local public library.

Sporcle is an internet-based quiz website; their slogan is "mentally challenging diversions" and they aren't kidding. It is addictive as hell! Knowledge is power - and fun! What are you waiting for?! Visit today!

TV Tropes is another addictive website dedicated to the tropes commonly found in today's fiction and literature. (Don't let the name fool you, it has entries for just about every medium of fiction.)

Rounding out my list of favorites is Wired.com. Science fiction is born at the cutting edge of technology, and that's what you will find at Wired.com: all the latest news, updated frequently, about the newest technology of the day.

So anyway, enjoy the links, and check back soon for my latest.