You Say Geek Like It's a Bad Thing...

      I accepted my inner geek years ago--sometime between falling in love with Hans Solo in 2nd grade, and staying up all night to finish reading the last Harry Potter book the day it was released.  So, I have no problem admitting that I love literature--every part of it.  I love words.  I love looking up their synonyms in the thesaurus.  I love reading about their etymology and studying their connotations in different cultures.  I even love the word connotation, but not so much the word synonym, mostly because it's rather hard to spell.

     I even love grammar, though it can sometimes be a fickle and inconsistent friend.  If you say something incorrectly, I will correct you.  Don't take it personally, I do it to everyone.  It's an automatic reaction, like yelling out when I stub my toe.  I mean no harm.  However, if you correct me, I will deny ever having said whatever it is you thought you heard.
     Are you a word-addict like I am?  Do you commonly spend nights awake in bed because you just can't put down the book you decided to start reading at 9PM (just one more chapter and then I'll go to bed, promise)?  Well, if you are, here are some books, websites, and blogs to geek out about.

Books:
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson - This book is an insightful and entertaining investigation into how the English language has formed, altered, grown, and become the language it is today.  Bryson is a hilarious and honest writer who makes you look at something you thought you knew as if it is something else entirely.

The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson - These two friends have traveled the United States armed with a permanent marker in order to free us all from our Typo Prison.  The book is full of pictures and stories of typos that they found on everything from restaurant menus to church signs, and they made sure to dot all the i's.

Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt - There are not many facts known about the great writer William Shakespeare, but if anyone can stir up a bit of truth within all the myths, my vote would go to Mr. Greenblatt.  This books is full of what may or may not have been the life of Shakespeare, that is, if Shakespeare existed at all.

Websites/Blogs:


www.bookglutton.com/ - What's better than access to hundreds of public domain novels?  Um, nothing! Plus, this website allows you to have discussions with people via the internet.  Book clubs will never be the same.

www.savethewords.org/ - If you don't visit this website, these words may die.  No, seriously.

www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet - If you love poetry, check this one out.  I promise you will love it.


       

     

If you have any good one's to add, please share!!

Speeches

Loud as the echoes of silence

That bounce off near and far wall

To make the illusion of past eternities

Filled with the freedom to fall

Faery Tale by Signe Pike

"A Woman's Search For Enchantment in a Modern World"

I just finished reading this book, and I just couldn't put it down.  I laughed (out loud), I cried, and I utterly annoyed my husband by quoting it aloud.

Ms. Pike weaves an enchanting narrative in her personal journey to find the magic alive in our world.  The book is full of beautiful descriptions of places that most of us can only read about in storybooks.  You truly can see the dark forests, steep cliffs, and peaceful gardens she visits, and feel the soft rains and violent winds she describes.  The story itself centers around both her travels through Britain, Ireland, and Wales in search of Faeries, and her own personal struggle to move past her father's recent death.  The story is touching, uplifting, and healing for both writer and reader.

I won't say that I definitively believe in faeries after reading this book, but I can say that Ms. Pike has reminded me that within all the daily chaos there exists magic, mystery, and beauty.

I highly recommend this book!!!  If you'd like more details, please visit the author's website:
http://signepike.com/home/

What's a Classic?

Today, a friend mentioned to me that she would be using this summer to catch up on her reading of The Classics, and that got me thinking about too things.

1. What exactly makes something a classic?  AND
2. What books would be on my reading list?

According to Mssrs. Merriam and Webster, a classic is defined as, "a work of enduring excellence".  So essentially, any book that is both good and old would be a classic?  Something tells me that it's more complex than that.

At what age can a book join the Classics party?
I'd say that at the minimum a book needs to span more than one generation in order to be considered to have endured.  Since the average length of a generation is about 25 years, I'm going to say that any book on my list must be over 25 years old, so that means only books published before 1986 can be considered.

What determines excellence?  
Now this discussion could undoubtedly go on for hours, but to make things more simple, I'm going to say that in order for a book to be considered to have excellence it must have both universality and complexity.

Universality - It speaks to people over different times and places in history because it reaches towards something truthful within humanity that can be understood beyond its own social or cultural context.

Concrete Evidence of Universality: Movie portrayals, modern rewrites, other media or movements inspired by this writing.

Complexity - Something about the book must be creative, intelligent, or inventive.  It could be the writing style, the subject matter, the theme, the narrative voice, or really anything that shows the authors ingenuity.
Concrete Evidence of Complexity- Varying scholarly interpretation, intellectual debates (presently or at its implementation), the creation of a new genre, dialogue, or topic of study


My List (ever growing, ever changing)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Dracula - Bram Stoker (As soon as I get over my fear of vampires.)
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (I will try again!)
The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne (I think he's a genius writer.)
The Illiad - Homer
The Odyssey - Homer
Lord of the Ring Trilogy - JRR Tolkien (I know, I should have read them already.)
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

What books would make your Summer of Classics reading list??