Leafing Through

Benjamin Percy

         This post was originally meant to be about The Virginian by Owen Wister but I don't think that it can be just about that any more.  This evening on my commute I was happy to hear the All Things Considered series You Must Read This come on the air.  You Must Read This is a great series that has famous authors tell about their favorite books.  I like this series because a lot of the books are older and are thus overlooked today.  This afternoon I heard Benjamin Percy talk about The Virginian by Owen Wister. As you might have all figured out by now I'm not always the most up to date on books and authors.  I'm OK with that.  If I don't find out about them now I'll certainly stumble over them at some time.  But as Benjamin Percy talked about this book that means so much to me, this book that embodies all that I always wanted out of a western I thought that it was a sweet piece done by a man of 50 or so.  Why? Because I have never HEARD of this prize winning author!  Not a clue who he was.  I was captivated by his Sam Elliot voice though and was shocked when I logged onto NPR to retrieve the story to tell you all to go and read this book when I see Benjamin's photo.  Surely, I thought to myself, someone else had to have read the story in his absence due to a cold or some other illness leaving the man unable to talk on NPR.  I thought this because no one who is the same age as me should have a voice that deep.  It's just not right to lead me to believe that you have eons of experience when you're my age!  Now I have to read his works.  Seriously, I need to go to Title Wave and see if they have his books.  How have I not heard of his stuff?  I'm so out of the loop that it's scary.

Oh yeah: go read  that book.  You'll love it.  It's the first western but don't think of it that way.  Just read it ok?    

Adieu Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan, whose real name is James Oliver Rigney Junior died today of a rare blood disease Amyloidosis that caused the walls of his heart to thicken.  He was 58.  If you haven't read any of books you probablly at least saw them on the shelves at bookstores.  He's most famous for his Wheel of Time series. Jordan's first fantasy book, The Eye of the World, was published in 1990 and sold millions of copies over the years.   

He also wrote several other novels under the name Reagan O'Neal in the early 1980s. He was working on his 12th Wheel of Time book at the time of his death.   

Let me tell you that while I really didn't enjoy his books: this guy was HUGE, just ask any geek at Dragon Conn and they'll rave about the man.  Here's a question that is in the Frequently asked portion of his webpage: If Mat's foxhead medallion works against saidin then how come Rahvin's lightnings killed him?
Seriously!  The FREQUENTLY ASKED!  People are SERIEOUS about his writings.  He's worth a mention to me just for that.

In Memoriam: Banned Book Month or: the saddest girl ever.

How do you say goodbye to an icon?  September 6th, 2007 Madeleine L'engle died.  Did she rock your world like she rocked mine?  If you're my friend Robb she most certianly did not.  But still, it's ironic that she should die during September, when banned book week is.

The following is from her website

Madeleine L'Engle Camp Franklin, 88, of Goshen, CT and New York City, died Thursday, September 6th. Born November 29, 1918, in New York City, to Charles Camp and Madeleine Barnett Camp, she was educated in Switzerland and South Carolina, before graduating from Smith College. She was the author of over 60 books, including the award-winning A Wrinkle in Time.

She is survived by her two daughters, Josephine Jones of Goshen, CT and Maria Rooney and her husband John of Mystic, CT; her five grandchildren, Madeleine Jones Roy and her husband Rob, Charlotte Jones Voiklis and her husband John, Edward Jones, Bryson Rooney, all of New York City, and Alexander Rooney, of Mystic CT; and five greatgrandchildren, Kosta and Magda Voiklis, and Cooper, Finn, and Scarlett Roy. She was preceded in death by her husband, Hugh Franklin, and her son, Bion Barnett Franklin.

In lieu of flowers, a memorial gift may be made to Crosswicks Foundation, Ltd, 924 West End Ave, apt 95, New York, New York, 10025. This is just an option, and we encourage you to honor her memory in any way you choose.

Read a banned book!

I am at a loss.  I'm not sure even how to tell you how upset I am about her death.  She lived a long life though and she is celebrated by many readers who love her. 

Wheaton college has a special collection and this interview and article:

I was born in New York City on the snowy night of November 29, 1918, and lived in New York City for the next twelve years, with a jaunt or two to Europe. My father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer and my mother, Madeleine Hall Barnett Camp, a pianist, and the house was always full of artists of one kind or another. When I was twelve we moved to Europe, where we lived mostly in France and Switzerland, and I went to a Swiss boarding school. Then followed school in South Carolina and Smith College.

After graduating from Smith in 1941, I took an apartment in Greenwich Village with three other girls, two of whom were aspiring actresses. Because I wanted to be a writer, I was the lucky one to get jobs in the theater (I thought it was an excellent school for writers and it is). When I was in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard I met actor Hugh Franklin, and I married him a year later. At his request I withdrew from Actor’s Equity and in 1952 he also retired from the theater “forever.”

We had an old white farmhouse in northwestern Connecticut, and he wanted to settle down, put down roots, and get away from the tensions of the city and the theater. In order to earn a living, we acquired a defunct general store. I must honestly admit that helping to build up a dead general store, participate in the life of a small, but very active community, run a large old farmhouse, and raise three small children is the perfect “way not” to write a book. However, I did manage to write at night. I have written since I could hold a pencil, much less a pen, and writing is for me an essential function, like sleeping and breathing.

As a gifted girl excluded from the circle of popular children, L’Engle cultivated a richly textured interior life, immersing herself in the works of L. Frank Baum, L.M. Montgomery and, most happily, George MacDonald. “Meeting [him] when I was very young,” she writes, “was a blessing to my understanding of God and creation and our own small but potentially beautiful place in it.”

During college, L’Engle wrote plays and published short stories in magazines, and in 1945 released her first book, The Small Rain. Then followed Ilsa (1946) and Camilla Dickinson (1951). After she and Hugh moved to the country to raise their family, L’Engle wrote prolifically but published only one novel, A Winter’s Love (1957). Discouraged, she gave up writing; however, even in the depths of disheartenment she found herself composing a book about failure, and there decided that perhaps she was a writer, after all. Her next title was Meet the Austins (1960).

At this time, she and Hugh decided to return to New York City where he resumed his acting career, eventually landing a plum role on the daytime soap opera, “All My Children.” Soon after, L’Engle developed a fascination for quantum physics, and in response wrote A Wrinkle in Time, the novel that finally secured her lasting commercial success. For Wrinkle, she received the 1963 Newbery Medal, a particularly satisfying celebration for a book that had gathered dozens of rejections.

In the city, L’Engle involved herself with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where she assumed the position of church librarian while enjoying a challenging tutelage under her spiritual advisor, Edward Nason West, the Episcopal cathedral’s extraordinarily learned subdean. Subsequently, West was honored in several novels as a character called “Canon Tallis.”

Her reputation firmly established, L’Engle produced confidently throughout the 1960’s. Titles include The Moon by Night (1963), The Journey with Jonah (1967), The Young Unicorns (1968), and Dance in the Desert (1969). In 1973 she wrote A Wind in the Door, continuing the “time” narrative introduced in Wrinkle, following with A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), Many Waters (1986) and An Acceptable Time (1989). A Ring of Endless Light, chronicling the adventures of heroine Vicki Austin, received the Newbery Honor award for 1981.

Though all of her writing is seasoned with personal touches, in the 1970’s L’Engle deliberately leaned toward autobiographical intimacy with The Crosswicks Journals, presenting extended ruminations about her family, faith and career. In the final entry, Two-Part Invention (1988), she reflects on her marriage to Hugh, and his eventual death from cancer in 1986.

Further meditations on pilgrimage and creation are found in the Genesis trilogy, And It Was Good (1983), A Stone for a Pillow (1986) and Sold Into Egypt (1989). In this series, she engages such biblical characters as Jacob and Joseph as she presents observations concerning bereavement, relationship and journey.

Later titles, fiction and non-fiction, include Certain Women (1992), Troubling A Star (1994), Penguins and Golden Calves (1996), Bright Evening Star (1997), Miracle on 110th Street (1998) and The Other Dog (2001). In Friends for the Journey (1997), co-written with poet Luci Shaw, L’Engle discusses the value of discerning friendship.

During most of these years, L’Engle, in addition to writing, embarked on an arduous lecturing career that would have exhausted a woman half her age, delivering commencement speeches and conducting spirituality retreats. Her thinking concerning creativity and the spirit is expounded in Walking on Water (1978), a classic text for Christian artists.

In 1975, Professor Clyde Kilby of Wheaton College, IL, approached L’Engle about donating her papers. Since, Wheaton has acquired an ever-increasing assortment of manuscripts, artwork and correspondence for its Special Collections. Barring restrictions, this material is available to researchers.

Madeleine L’Engle died on September 6, 2007. In her life and writing, the artist who postulates so eloquently about space, time and love has achieved timelessness.

This is said a lot more elloquently than I can say.  May you rest in peace Madeline, thank you for all the literature.  Thanks for enduring through the banning of your books. 

 

Nerdilicious

Have you heard of her?  She's been going strong for over a year now but I still can't get enough of Grammar Girl .  Here's a link for the effect v. affect: my own personal demon.  We all have at least one.  I never had a problem with that and which, two: too, and I never ever had a problem with their, they're and there. It's all so easy but give me effect and affect and I'm lost and confused.  God bless Grammar Girl.   

Desire Street Acadamy

This charity was recently brought to my attention.  They need books so that their students can read classics alongside their parents, then they'll watch the movie version.  I love the fact that the parents have to be involved as well.  I need to dig through my book stash and see what I have.  I KNOW that I have duplicates of some of these books that they want. So go on, give those old classics a new life and send them on!   

Desire Street Academy
3852 East Brookstown Drive
Baton Rouge, LA 70805
office: 225-355-5074

BOOKS NEEDED AT DSA

Direct questions to Mrs. Edwine Muse, Curriculum Developer
Desire Street Academy, Phone 225-355-5074, Fax 225-246-8532

Literature

Aeschylus
    Agamemnon
    Prometheus Bound

Alcott, Louisa May
    Little Women

Armstrong, William Howard
    Sounder

Asimov, Isaac
    Foundation

Augustine
    Confessions

Austen, Jane
    Emma
    Mansfield Park
    Pride and Prejudice
    Sense and Sensibility

Bagnold, Enid
    National Velvet

Blackmore, Richard
    Lorna Doone

Bolt, Robert
    A Man for All Seasons

Bradbury, Ray
    Dandelion Wine
    The Martian Chronicles
    Fahrenheit 451

Brontë, Charlotte
    Jane Eyre

Brontë, Emily
    Wuthering Heights

Buck, Pearl
    The Good Earth

Bunyan, John
    Pilgrim’s Progress

Burnett, Frances Hodgson
    The Secret Garden

Cervantes, Miguel de
    Don Quixote de la Mancha

Chaucer, Geoffrey
    The Canterbury Tales

Clark, Arthur C.
    2001: A Space Odyssey

Conrad, Joseph
    Heart of Darkness
    Lord Jim

Cooper, James Fenimore
    The Deerslayer
    The Last of the Mohicans

Dante
    The Inferno

Defoe, Daniel
    Robinson Crusoe

Dickens, Charles
    Great Expectations
    Hard Times
    Oliver Twist
    Our Mutual Friend

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
    Crime and Punishment
    The Brothers Karamazov

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
    The Hound of the Baskervilles

Dumas, Alexandre
    The Count of Monte Cristo
    The Three Musketeers

Farley, Walter
    The Black Stallion

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
    The Great Gatsby

Forbes, Esther
    Johnny Tremain

Frank, Anne
    The Diary of a Young Girl

Gilbreath, Frank B. and Ernestine
    Cheaper by the Dozen

Gipson, Fred
    Old Yeller

Golding, William
    Lord of the Flies

Grahame, Kenneth
    The Wind in the Willows

Hamilton, Alexander and James Madison
    The Federalist Papers

Hardy, Thomas
    The Return of the Native
    Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Hawthorne, Nathaniel
    The House of the Seven Gables

Heaney, Seamus (translator)
    Beowulf

Hemingway, Ernest
    The Old Man and the Sea

Herbert, Frank
    Dune

Homer
    The Iliad
    The Odyssey

Hugo, Victor
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    Les Miserables

Huxley, Aldous
    Brave New World

James, Henry
    The Portrait of a Lady
    The Turn of the Screw

Kipling, Rudyard
    Captains Courageous
    The Jungle Book

Knowles, John
    A Separate Peace

L’Engle, Madeleine
    A Wrinkle in Time

Lewis, C. S.
    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
    Out of the Silent Planet
    Perelandra
    That Hideous Strength
    The Screwtape Letters
    Till We Have Faces

London, Jack
    The Call of the Wild
    White Fang

Melville, Herman
    Moby Dick

Milton, John
    Paradise Lost

Mitchell, Margaret
    Gone with the Wind

Montgomery, L. M.
    Anne of Green Gables

Nesbit, Edith
    The Railway Children

Nordoff, Charles and James Norman Hall
    Mutiny on the Bounty

O’Hara, Mary
    My Friend Flicka

Orczy, Baroness Emmuska
    The Scarlet Pimpernell

Orwell, George
    1984
    Animal Farm

Potok, Chaim
    The Chosen

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
    The Yearling

Remarque, Erich Maria
    All Quiet on the Western Front

Rostand, Edmund
    Cyrano de Bergerac

Scott, Sir Walter
    Ivanhoe

Sewell, Anna
    Black Beauty

Shakespeare, William
    Hamlet
    Henry V
    King Lear
    As You Like It
    Romeo and Juliet

Shelley, Mary
    Frankenstein

Sophocles
    Oedipus Rex

Speare, Elizabeth George
    Heidi

Steinbeck, John
    The Grapes of Wrath
    Of Mice and Men
    The Pearl

Stendhal
    The Red and the Black

Stevenson, Robert Louis
    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    Treasure Island

Stowe, Harriet Beecher
    Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Swift, Jonathon
    Gulliver’s Travels

Thackery, William M.
    Vanity Fair

Tolkien, J. R. R.
    The Hobbit
    The Fellowship of the Ring
    The Two Towers
    The Return of the King
    The Silmarillion

Tolstoy, Leo
    Anna Karenina
    War and Peace

Twain, Mark
    The Prince and the Pauper

Verne, Jules
    Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Virgil
    The Aeneid

Wells, H. G.
    The Invisible Man
    The Time Machine
    The War of the Worlds

White, E. B.
    Charlotte’s Web

White, T. H.
    The Once and Future King

Wilder, Laura Ingalls
    Little House on the Prairie

Wilder, Thornton
    Our Town

Wyss, Johann David
    The Swiss Family Robinson