great books

Showing posts with label great books. Show all posts

In A Time of Libraries

Sunday, July 21, 2013

“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” ― Anne Herbert

There are two things that are almost solely responsible for my cultural development: the library and the radio.

As a young girl, the library feed my ferocious reading appetite as I checked out every Baby-Sitters Club book the local library had, along with anything else that caught my fancy. During my teenage years, the local library served both as my office (where we held many the creative/planning meeting for the radio show I co-produced during high school) and also where I dipped my toe into teen culture (thanks Teen People) and developed hobbies I still have today as I perused the latest issue of Fine Cooking. Even in college, the library was where I went, equipped with a huge mug of tea, to finish term papers I'd neglected until the last minute as well as to check out the occasional "for fun" book.

But despite being the library's number one fan, I've been absent from the local library in recent years. Lately, the only time I've popped into the library was to pick up a DVD on a winter day, when a storm is predicted and there are no Netflix on the immediate horizon. I'm not sure why I've been abandoning the library. Perhaps it just feels like one too many errands to run on a busy town trip. Perhaps I had a lot of angst about the 28 day check out time not being long enough to finish a book.

I've also been falling into the trap of buying my books . . . all of them. Blame it on Amazon, or something, but I've been stuck in the mindset for a while that if I want to read a book, I need to buy it. Certainly there are books that should be purchased because they'll be read over and over again (Game of Thrones, A Discovery of Witches, etc.) but a lot of the books I've purchased in the last few years are destined to be read once, then occasionally leafed through before being donated or sold to Half Price books. And speaking of Half Price books, I have so many books I've grabbed from the clearance rack at Half Price that I may never finish, or even start. (*cough* Pilgrim at Tinker Creek *cough*) While I love to surround myself with books, lately it's been coming apparent that it's time to relearn the difference between books to buy and books to borrow.

So I'm trying to re-incorporate the library into my daily life. Last week when I wanted a book on running and Andy wanted a book on the Storm King Mountain tragedy which I thought my parents had but didn't, I did a quick search of the local library's catalog and realized I could find exactly what I was looking for in a 2 minute stop to the library. Could it be easier?

There's something so cathartic about the library. It's quiet. It's organized. It's always there when you need it. As I checked out my admittedly slim stack of books I wondered why it had taken me so long to come back.

Do you use the library?

Book Withdrawal

Sunday, November 4, 2012

I may have a teensy weensy, itty bitty case of book withdrawal.

Sadly (happily?), I finished up A Discovery of Witches on Friday evening. After spending most of the week cruising through the book at about 100 pages a night, it was a bit of a let down.

Maybe it was a little more than a let down. I've had a difficult time fully extracting myself from the book's world of witches, vampires, daemons, and mysterious misplaced magical manuscripts ever since I closed the book cover for a final time. I'm a little embarrassed to admit just how much I loved a book in which vampires played such a critical role. (Yes, vampires. *blush*)

Back in the day (aka: high school), I read many a fantasy novel. I loved Jane Yolen, Terry Goodkind, Tamora Pierce, and so many others. But then I went to college and there just aren't that many good fantasy books in the English major's canon, you know. It's been a long time sine I delved into a book that was so overtly fantastical and I was glad to find it so easy to get whisked off into another magical world, especially in a book that I picked up on a whim.

Author Deborah Harkness, who's a history professor, does a wonderful job of weaving scientific and historical facts into the tale to move the plot forward. She also has a knack for choosing wonderfully interesting settings (at least for this Anglophile.)

But don't get me wrong. The book's far from perfect. It starts off mighty slowly. The main character, Diana, is a historian of science and reluctant witch, researching in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Now I know that research can have it's interesting bits, at least if you yourself are the researcher. But reading about a fictional character doing research is not exactly fast-paced excitement. A fair amount of the first 70 or so pages read something like this: "I got up and went to the library. I got some books. I read the books. Then I went home." Wash, rinse, repeat. *yawn*

But then Diana discovers a magic manuscript. And then she bumps into vampire. Then the entire magical community starts to gang up on Diana.Oh, and there's a love story involving star-crossed lovers unfolding too . . . .

Harkness may have left a few too many details in her final manuscript (Really, if you must describe clothing in your writing, at least be vague enough so that the reader can draw their own conclusions about what the character's wearing. I mean - what the heck is a blue sweater with a funnel shaped neckline?! I don't even know.) but I did find myself genuinely caring about the characters. In fact, I may have gotten a little too attached to them. I spent most yesterday suffering from "where's the sequel already" ennui.

That's right: ennui.

Now simply no other book will do. I must find out what happens to Matthew and Diana.

That nonfiction book I'm halfway through about eating habits of immigrants living in a tenement building on New York City's Lower East Side? Sure it's interesting to read about the Jewish practice of raising and slaughtering geese for a little while. But my goodness, that sort of reading is awfully real. Where are the vampires, I ask you? Where are castles and fortresses and bad guys?

So this morning, I did what any slightly possessed bookworm does when in the throws of such book-induced angst. I went to Amazon and ordered the next book in the series.

Am I setting myself up for disappointment? Oh yeah. (The online reviews of this second book aren't great.) Still, I have a feeling once the book's in my hands, I'll be able to shut up my inner critic and enjoy this book as much as I loved the first one.
.
Please Super Saver shipping be kind to me. Don't be too putzy, mm-kay?

What have you been reading lately?

Guest Post: Book Club Weekend Holly-Style!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Note from Ada: It's one late Book Club Friday, but I'd like to blame the delay on Blogger, who started eating all posts and comments on Wednesday and didn't stop until yesterday morning. (Epic fail!) I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to read Carissa's Small Town Traditions post before post Holly's Book Club Friday (weekend?) post. Holly writes over at Wuthered Window and shared some of her favorite childhood reads. Seems we've been talking about childhood favorites on Book Club Fridays a lot lately. Enjoy! P.S. Of Woods and Words regularly scheduled programming resumes on Monday. See you then!

As part of my gap year I haven't been doing much structured written work or reading until a couple of months ago and therefore have not performed to a deadline in a long old time. BIG MISTAKE! (cue quote from Mystery Men)

After a lovely day helping my grandparents sort a new carpet out and watching The King's Speech with them, I drove home and was about to go to bed when I thought, I'm just gonna check my emails (it's something I do to pass and waste time – as I nearly always have signed up for spam). I saw to my horror (at 10:30pm) an email received yesterday from Ada saying very nicely, any time on Thursday would do for getting my guest post. Well I sure hope she meant that.

Books of my childhood (oh lord, what's coming next you say, a drivelling account of the fact you loved to read) is a topic focused on by Jayne Fordham in her post "Memories... books I read as a child.” And whilst a little bit of insight into her choices it opened up great memories for me. These sorts of posts are only ever interesting if you happen to like the same books and can revel in the stories with the writer, or it leads you on a trail entirely of your own reveling.

Such was the case in Jayne's post when she mentioned James and the Giant Peach and writing your name in the front of books. Having seen the film at around the same time (and later discovering David Thewlis was in it all along) as reading the book, it meant I didn't conjure up the world for myself but used the scenes from the film. This is half, if not more, of the fun in reading on your own and as a child, that you are the creator and the characters become your friends as you are drawn in. (I still always cry when my literary friends die – Akkarin!)

And now I have a terrible secret to reveal... I own a first edition paper back of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (you know, the edition before the illustrator realised Dumbledore was an old man), and like every small child, it was mine and I will make sure no one takes it, therefore I will write my name in large letters in the front and colour in the Hogwart's crest (wrongly). Rendering it now worthless to everyone else but myself. Hurray for childhood greediness and love of HP!

They were the first books that began me reading like a maniac every night till stupid o'clock in the morning (meaning I now need glasses, idiot), and the first ones where I had the characters, scenes and world firmly in my head and all as my own creation. It's a good job the films are so great else that would have been ruined.

(Yada Yada stop talking) Finally a quick fire round of other childhood and teen favourites that I will forever love and give to my kids/any child who will listen to my good sense and taste:

Artemis Fowl (I was seriously going to audition if the film had been made, for the part of Holly of course. Weirdly my boyfriend would have done the same thing for Artemis, meaning we might have met completely differently.)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Magician's Guild.
Jedi Apprentice (cue laughter).
Wizard Apprentice.
A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Mister Monday series.
George's Marvellous Medicine.

And hand on heart not, never, never will be Twilight.

Holly

What were your favorite childhood reads?

Guest Post: Book Club Friday Betsy-Style!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Note from Ada: This week I'm asking some of my bloggy friends to help fill the Of Woods and Words soundwaves. Last year, my dear friend Betsy from In the Past Lane, suggested I check out Made from Scratch, a book by Jean Zimmerman, after reading my post about baking bread. Instead, I grabbed Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich, which fueled my desire to have a backyard filled with vegetables, chickens, and bees and which I have no regretted reading one little bit. But to set the record straight, here's Betsy talking about the book I was supposed to read!

Last fall, I meandered my way to the library of the small-town Minnesota university at which I work, for their annual book sale. Library book sales are a thing of beauty – there’s always some sort of treasure waiting to be picked up for ten cents. That day, I stumbled upon Made From Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth by Jean Zimmerman. The jacket appealed to me – hey, I like crafty things! I like knitting and baking and cooking! Why not?

I thought the book would be an “all girls together” celebration of all things domestic. In a sense, it was – but it was so much more. Zimmerman is an author who has made her name writing books about the challenges women face in the modern world. In this book, she looks backwards – all the way to Ancient Greece, where Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was the symbol of the strength of housewives and hearth-keepers. She traces the history of domesticity all the way up to the late 19th century. At that time, home economics became A Thing. Instead of domestic arts being consider an art, they were turned into a science, homogenized and sanitized. Instead of making bread the way your mother taught you, you made bread the way your textbook explained to you, because it was healthier and cleaner and neater and my God, don’t you want your children to grow up clean and healthy and neat? This leads into the wild and crazy sixties and the women’s lib movement, which gave women more freedom to look outside the home for fulfillment, at the cost of degrading and vilifying the domestic arts.

These are hardly conjectures or speculation on Zimmerman’s part. She backs up her statements with solid research into historical artifacts and documents, along with her own experiences of growing up in the seventies and subsequent abandonment of homemaking. At the same time that she cites studies and anecdotal research that show us how the loss of domesticity has affected us as a culture. We flock to museums that show us how people used to live, with a nostalgia for how “simple” life was back then. The Food Network is one of the fastest-growing cable channels, yet many children have never tasted homemade bread. We refer to the feeling of “coming home” when something makes us feel whole and complete, yet we neglect the art of making a home. We thrive on fast-and-easy fixes – Easy Mac, Homestyle Bakes, food that fills us but doesn’t really satisfy our souls.

This book resonated with me in many ways. I’ve always had a nostalgia for the past, as evidenced by my hobby of living history (or as others refer to it, historical reenactment). I’m what you would call a crafter – I annex crafts like they are territory to be conquered, leaping from sewing to quilting to embroidery to knitting at a rate that makes my mother roll her eyes. A child of the eighties and nineties, I never learned to use a sewing machine until I sought it out myself; when I did, I felt that “coming home” feeling, of something that clicked and felt right.

I used to think I was born in the wrong century, that I should be ashamed that modern Betsy with a college degree would actually rather bake cookies and knit a sweater. Zimmerman’s book showed me that there were centuries of homemaking traditions alive and well today. After reading the book, I was inspired to learn to bake with yeast, a task that had previously given me fits as it was too scientific. I learned to bake a cake from scratch, and when a friend served himself a third helping of my homemade old-fashioned strawberry shortcake, I beamed with pride. I came home.

The best part of it all is that Zimmerman offers no blame, points no fingers, offers no judgment. She freely admits that her own house is messy, she rarely has enough time for everything, and her kids do eat Poptarts for breakfast. As she states, “The only way forward is for us as a society to relearn to value work in the home without falling into reactionary traps about ‘proper’ roles for men and women”. Domesticity isn’t about being perfect, nor is it about stifling one’s potential. “We owe it to ourselves to live our lives fully,” Zimmerman insists, “to reap the pleasures that present themselves to us as humans.” And the most basic and fulfilling pleasure is coming home.

I’m certainly no messiah – I haven’t got further than baking kolaczys and bagels with yeast, and I still have an affinity for the occasional frozen pizza. But when that little domestic voice inside me starts begging me to knit or sew or bake a cake, I can satisfy it with pride, knowing that I’m doing my little part to keep the ancient hearth fires alive. Hestia would be proud.

Book Club Friday Goes British!

Friday, April 29, 2011

End the week with bookish chat. I share what I'm reading, you share what you're reading. If you've written a bookish post yourself in the last week or so, slap the above book club button on it and link up below!

I couldn't resist using the Royal Wedding as an excuse to talk British children's literature. Make yourself cozy and please, won't you have a cup of tea?

But before we go any further . . . Kate Middleton's wedding dress? Yay or nay?

Big, BIG "YAY" in my opinion. Dare I say, it's a little ala Princess Margaret? Nice work Princess Catherine!

Now then . . .

I've been trying to figure out just when I got to be such an Anglophile and while I'm not exactly sure what happened, I'd like to blame books nonetheless.

Specifically, these guys . . .

Actually, now that I think of it, although Pooh and Piglet and the rest of the original A.A. Milne gang (aka not the Disney Pooh . . . what the heck was with Pooh's red shirt anyway?!) were a huge part of my childhood, I think I probably got my first dose of English literature from a Ms. Beatrix Potter. Because of my springtime birthday (aka, the stores were stocked with Easter stuff), I always seemed to receive a lot of bunny stuff for my birthdays and for all the stuffed bunnies and little bunny knick-knacks I once owned, the bunnies who had the most impact on me were Potter's little rabbits.

I grew out of bunnies, eventually, and moved onto other British children's literature, the kind without sweet little illustrations. I read my copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses until the book jacket wore out. I got lost in the worlds of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and the Borrower books by Mary Norton.Who can resist tales about little people living under the floor boards?!

In my teenage years, I discovered Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The books, with their complicated discussions about freewill, sexuality, and religion, have already proven themselves far too complex to work in movie form. They're best reread over and over again to get everything packed into these books. I think I could reread them every year if I didn't think there were a lot of other books out in the world that also deserved my attention.

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (who also wrote 101 Dalmations . . .wait, another culprit in making me a nutty Anglophile!), is another British young adult classic. The story is charming, sweet and very British. What more could you want?

I'm missing a ton of other British classics that entertained and help shape both my childhood and my decisions as an adult, but these are the books that came to mind as I pondered childhood favorites by British authors.

What were some of your favorite childhood books? Any favorite British authors? Happy Friday all!

Book Club Friday! Let's Talk Classics . . .

Friday, April 22, 2011

End the week with bookish chat. I share what I'm reading, you share what you're reading. If you've written a bookish post yourself in the last week or so, slap the above book club button on it and link up below!

I'm still working my way through Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. I'm still enjoying it, but I had to agree with my commenters from last that Italy was the best part of the book. Funny, when the talk turned away from eating, my interest started to wane. Can we please talk about pizza some more? No? Bummer . . . I'm just starting in on the Indonesia section and am finding it much more interesting than her time spent at the Ashram in India. Although there were plenty of important lessons embedded in the India section, I just didn't find it as gripping as other sections.

The other day, I finished up a short story and asked Andy to read it over, to make sure it made sense. "You know what you should read?" he asked when he'd finished reading my latest work. I shook my head. He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out Hemingway's Complete Short Stories. "This!" he said.

Now, I'm not a huge Hemingway fan. While I admire his work, it's never resonated with me. He just more a "boys will be boys" sort of writer and I find men, in general, like his writing way more than women do. Like, way, WAY more. Still, I believe there are lessons a writer can learn from anything they read, so I cracked open a random short story and started reading. I still don't love Hemingway. But I do admire him: for his style, for his storytelling, for his success.

All this talk of Hemingway got me thinking about classic books. Since my junior year of high school, I've been working through the College Board's list of 101 Great Books for the college bound. I'm officially in my fourth year out of college (how can that be true?) and still have 37 books left to read on the list. In that time frame, I have read a fair amount of classics not on the list, but still, 37 left to go? Yikes! For a long time, I was pretty focused on checking off books on the list, but lately I've found I need to mix up my reading a little more (some chick lit, some bestsellers, etc.) to keep both my reading and writing mind refreshed.

Among my classic favorites: anything Austen, Shakespeare, Henry James, Bronte, and du Maurier. Accessible, well told stories are truly timeless.

Do you read the classics? Why or why not? What are some of your favorites? If you don't read the classics what's your favorite book genre?

Happy Friday!

Seeking Inspiration: Favorite Writing Books

Monday, March 28, 2011

To be perfectly honest, this March has not been my month.

Remember back when I asked "Do I dare?" Apparently, I dare not because I still have 50,000 words to get tapped out by Thursday to make my goal of writing 50,000 words in the month of March. That's right my friends, I've written a grand total of 0 fiction words this month and unless I got paid to write it, I didn't and even those deadlines were dealt with capriciously. I guess a month that kicked off with a nasty bout of stomach flu about 20 minutes into March 1 and involved lengthy dealings with the auto insurance people (oh black ice, you are not my friend) wasn't destined to be my most inspired 31 days.

But enough about me. While I've gotten a lot of knitting done this month (more on that later this week!) that's not really moving me along towards becoming a self-employed freelance writer. What I need is a kick in the butt. While I try to assure beginning writers that they really don't need to immerse themselves in "how to write" books before actually pursuing a writing career (just get writing!), I do find inspiration and sometimes, answers to puzzling aspects of the lifestyle, in the pages of writing books. When I'm really having a "black dog" sort of writing day, thumbing through one of these tomes is usually enough to get me back on track.

Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is, for me, the definitive writing book. I read this in high school when I was first contemplating ~~throwing away all of my worthy career plans~~ becoming a writer. Since then, I've been assigned the book in college and have come back to the pages multiple times on my own. Heartfelt advice with a healthy dose of humorous real life experience, Lamott tells it like it is and in the process makes us realize we're not alone in our struggle with the blank page. Definitely a book that I think deserves to be on every writer's bookshelf. Actually, it should be within arm's reach on every writer's desk.

I've only read Jane Yolen's Take Joy in its entirety once, but I often leaf through it and never fail to stumble upon a meaningful passage. Yolen was one of my favorite children's writers and as a result, it feels like advice in this book is coming from a beloved elder. Yolen's most powerful advice? This writing gig is supposed to be a really good time. If it doesn't bring you joy, what's the point, eh? This advice is so obvious, yet never fails to hit me hard with an "oh yeah . . . "

The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen just came out in the last half-year or so and is a book for those serious about turning their writing in their career and their lifestyle. While book does repeat itself a fair bit (perhaps since Cohen is obviously trying to comply with a 200-page contract), I found much of the advice in this book fresh, helpful, and totally in tune with the reality of writing in 2011. Most importantly, The Productive Writer reminds you that there are enough hours in the day to do meet your writing goals. Turns out it's all about choosing writing over knitting. Who knew?

I've long be on the prowl for a freelance writing book that deals with the stuff I don't quite grasp about a freelance career yet doesn't dwell on the stuff that I've already heard many times before. Michael Perry's Handbook for Freelance Writing is the best "how to" book I've found on the craft. Maybe I find the book's writing and advice so appealing because Perry's from the Midwest. He makes freelance writing sound like something even us A- personality types might succeed at. You should note that the book was written in the 1990s and as a result some of the advice (especially regarding technology) is glaringly out of date. The bare bones of the book are good enough to warrant overlooking this "issue" and I would totally buy a revised 2011 version of the book if it was available. Hear that Mr. Perry?

Do you have a favorite writing book? Or a favorite "how to" book?

Book Club Friday

Friday, March 11, 2011

Happy Friday everyone! Today I'm introducing a semi-regular Friday feature (aka as frequently as I finish a book worth talking about) called Book Club Fridays! Grab a cup of tea or joe, get your reading glasses in place and get ready to talk books. We're leaving the woods behind and going all words today.

Today's selection? The Help, Kathryn Stockett's debut novel.

I tend to stray away from super popular books for two reasons. One, I'm afraid they won't live up to the hype. Two, there's nothing worse than being told "you have to read" something. I didn't get around to reading Harry Potter until Prisoner of Azkaban was released. Subsequently, it took the last person in my super informal real life book club finishing The Help and mentioning how much they enjoyed it for me to finally decide to borrow the oft-offered copy and give it a go.

Set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, The Help follows the lives of three women -- Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter -- through the Civil Rights era turmoil. Aibileen and Minny are both black maids who work, often for less than minimum wage in white households, cooking meals, tending children, and cleaning house. Meanwhile Miss Skeeter, a recent college graduate with few marriage prospect, begins to question her place in the circle of privileged white women who hire "the help."

While initially turned off by the highly criticized use dialect for Aibileen's narrative, I forgot my "issues" with the dialect by about page 4. By page 50 I was completely engrossed in the world of Jackson (and as result have had Johnny Cash stuck in my head ever since). The novel shifts between the viewpoint of the three main characters, not an easy feat to pull off, and the narratives mesh together beautifully. The story, intertwined with history, humor, love, and heartache, reads like a true labor of love.

I get where people are coming from with criticism for the book; perhaps the book is an overly rosy, simplified look at this historic time. However, calling Stockett out for taking licenses with time seems petty when Stockett fully acknowledges these discrepancies in her afterword. A misplaced reference to Shake N' Bake is hardly enough to undermine the entire integrity of the novel. Stockett does succeed in bringing the uncomfortable reality of Jackson, MS in the 1960s into the living room of many people who would, like that famous Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, prefer to "think about that tomorrow." Overly rosy and simplified perhaps, but through her fiction, Stockett reaches out to a much larger audience then a stuffy book of sociology about these same facts ever would.

When I was 13, my family took a "Civil Rights" tour of the South, traveling through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Help reinforced much of what I learned on that trip as well as opened my eyes to different, less publicized elements of the Civil Rights movement. Not only does The Help contain an important U.S. history lesson, I found it whetted my appetite for some more Southern literature. Queue the Harper Lee and Carson McCullers!

Bottomline: The Help is a satisfying, thought-provoking read that keeps the pages turning and reader engaged and is a true testimony to the power of story.

What book are you reading these days?

Guilt, Part II

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about guilt pangs I feel after a shopping trip to Half Price Books or any other big bookstore box store. But I have another reason to feel guilty about the book buying binges I go on every time I’m in the Cities. The truth is, I’m an English major who buys fluffy puppies at the bookstore.

What’s a fluffy puppy when it comes to books? Well, it’s a book that’s not high concept, great literature, or anything more than a thin plot in which lurks hope of a movie contract. It’s the book equivalent to a donut. You know, full of empty calories, fleeting satisfaction, and evokes a mild displeasure in yourself.

Take for example some of the fluffy puppies which have graced my nightstand in the past year: P.S. I Love You, The Nanny Diaries, and my current read du jour: Me and Mr. Darcy.

Since my junior year of high school, I’ve been plowing through a list of 101 Great Books I found on the Princeton Review website back when I was preparing for college. 8 years and an English major later, 37 books remain on the list, but I’m a little exhausted with great literature. If Kafka’s Metamorphosis is sitting on my nightstand next to Me and Mr. Darcy chances are that my fingers are going to tiptoe over to select the latter option.

Is this a bad thing?

Outside of academic circles, few read Dickens, Kafka, Faulkner, et. al. With lessons about life and writing are embedded in all great works of literature, these books are definitely worth the time and patience it takes to truly absorb them. They’re just not always a whole lot of fun and to me, one of the most magical quality of writing and storytelling is its ability to transport us from our mundane lives into fabulous new worlds. When I’m spending most of my reading time mulling over the author’s meaning, the whole magical transportation things just isn’t really happening. Yet on the other hand, the unpolished writing of lots of fluffy puppies can be another point of contention which hampers my absorption into the book’s story.

I really hope I don’t end up writing fluffy puppies. And I certainly don’t harbor of producing great literature that will be read for centuries to come. I want to produce something that is appealing, well written, and interesting. There has to be a balance between great works of literature and the books which sell. But how can I recognize, how can I succeed, at the balance if I don’t have an understanding of one of these opposing poles?

I really have no excuse for buying and subsequently reading fluffy puppies. Other than that they’re fun and fast and when I’m feeling really optimistic, I like to think I might just be learning something.

Pages