The Annotated TBR #01

Here's the first installment—because I expect there to be many—of The Annotated TBR. That is: Here's a selection of some of the books in my to-be-read list; here are the books that, when I first held them at the bookstore, I felt that I should read at the very soonest, read right that minute, possessed and squirreled away. Basically: Here are the books I've ignored for the longest time. Maybe it's a way to make amends? Maybe it's a way to push myself? Maybe it's a way to revisit that initial need and that urgency. We'll see. [Continue reading.]

08232013: Mood swings

Recently, I’ve shyly crawled toward reading material that’s not precisely comfortable. I’m all too aware how my mind has refused to be biddable these past couple of months, but now it’s yearning for a challenge—almost missing having to be told to fucking stay still and focus, because there is much goodness to be had. Which is why I’ve been reading a re-issued novel about I-still-don't-know-what-but-I-like-it-anyway, and a virtual textbook on the history of humourism. Welcome, dorks. [Continue reading.]

Knowledge for knowledge’s sake?

In this post: Thoughts on Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss [jump to A], and on Mrs. Beeton’s Household Book edited by Kay Fairfax [jump to B]—eventual reading in my quest to sustain Dorkus Randomicus status. Because, ya know: There comes a time in a young woman’s life when she’ll hunger for a book [...]

Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading, and our “essential function”

There is nowhere to begin with A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel when you’ve got a mind as speckle-y and inane as mine. Faced with this kind of book-dorkery-in-a-book, the tendency is to quote long passages from each of the chapters, and [over-] share personal experience that basically says, “I agree, I agree!” [I [...]

The Büchernarr

In the chapter “The Book Fool,” of A History of Reading, author Alberto Manguel cites a small volume of allegorical verse by one Sebastian Brant, published in February 1494 called The Ship of Fools -- with illustrations by a young Albrecht Dürer. Yes, the book fool is the main attraction. “Brant,” Manguel shares, “had meticulously [...]

“. . .a species of covetousness unlike any other”

. . . no curses seem to deter those readers who, like crazed lovers, are determined to make a certain book theirs. The urge to possess a book, to be its sole owner, is a species of covetousness unlike any other. “A book reads the better,” confessed Charles Lamb . . . “which is our [...]

On The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

I don’t think I’ve ever had any interest in the Puritans. But Nick Hornby kept going on and on about Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates that when I saw it half-buried in a BookSale, priced PhP45 [about a dollar], I had to buy it. Curiosity, you see. Although it wasn’t until I got home and [...]