habitually probing generalist

Tuesday of this week, February 7th, was the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, his bicentenary. Various events were held worldwide and we did a little bit here in Sioux City at the Bishop Mueller Library at Briar Cliff University. Late in January, thanks to having most of our Dickens’ texts around me due to [...]

[Read more →]

My friend Jess talked me into participating in JaPoWriMo, or January Poetry Writing Month. At least that is how I am parsing it out. The idea is simply to write one poem a day. She insisted they could be a short as haiku and that there was no requirement for them to be any good. [...]

[Read more →]

This is the 3rd update to the Two-Thirds book Challenge. Sara Themes are the structure to Sara’s Challenge so we’ll honor those here. Her comments on the following four books can be seen here: Books of 2011 Writing: The Late American Novel, edited by Jeff Martin, “was an excellent choice.” “Dozens of writers of various [...]

[Read more →]

Transformations. Anne Sexton; Houghton Mifflin 1971 WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder Brutal. Unflinching. Caustic. Anne Sexton let loose on fairy tales. This is another book in my Two-Thirds Book Challenge. There isn’t a lot to say here unless one is a fan of Sexton. We read a few of these along with many other Sexton poems (and those [...]

[Read more →]

English after the fall: from literature to textuality Robert Scholes; University of Iowa Press 2011 WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder Disclaimer: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book as part of the Library Thing Early Reviewer Program. I read this book from 23 Nov – 13 Dec 2011 and the bottom line is that I enjoyed [...]

[Read more →]

Cribbed from Angel at The Itinerant Librarian. 1 The book I am currently reading. Like Angel, I usually have more than one book going. I am currently reading the following: The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore; Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces; Hermann Melville’s Billy Budd and other stories; and about a half [...]

[Read more →]

9780679410775 Pale fire Vladimir Nabokov; Knopf 1992 WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder This was the first book I started reading for my Two-Thirds Book Challenge, although it is the second one that I finished. I started reading this on 2 October and read the foreword and the poem itself within the first couple of days of starting. Then [...]

[Read more →]

This is the 2nd update to the Two-Thirds book Challenge. This time of year is always busy and for one of us facing a big move it is especially so. Thus, not many of us were able to finish reading and/or write up any of our books. Helen read Steve Martin’s An Object of Beauty. [...]

[Read more →]

This is the first book I have finished for My Two-Thirds Book Challenge. Sara picked this book up at the lovely Defunct Books in Iowa City. It is a nice used book store that sits atop The Red Avocado vegan restaurant. Two great places in such proximity! The Way It Is ; Graywolf Press 1999 [...]

[Read more →]

[Minor edit: 24 November 2011 to add links to Helen's posts at her blog.] Over two months ago, I dreamed up a reading challenge, My Two-Thirds Book Challenge, after finishing another over the previous year. The new one began on October 1st. So far, four people have joined me: 3 friends, E, Helen, and Jen, [...]

[Read more →]