Blog

Tag: literature

  • July 15th, 2015 5:21pm

    Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying.

    — The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

  • June 25th, 2015 8:05pm

    This book was fantastic! Now onto The Thin Man, and then The Glass Key. I’m hooked on Hammett…that sounds like something that should be a hashtag. 

  • March 22nd, 2015 11:08pm

    As for the end of the universe…I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare? All I know is that Roland of Gilead has lived too long and I want that son of a bitch in the ground. And those he’s drawn, too.

    — Randall Flagg – “The Dark Tower” by Stephen King.

  • August 6th, 2014 1:10am

    sagansense:

    universalnomad:

    Right, so as I mentioned in the Guardians of the Galaxy post, Ridley Scott, of Alien and Blade Runner fame is making a movie out of Andy Weir’s book The Martian, which is about an astronaut who gets stranded alone on mars and has to find a way to survive four or more years until the next mission. This was possibly encouraged by the success of Gravity, of which it is similar, and I am really excited to see near future/real space exploration see more exposure in the mass public eye. Even if it is about something going wrong, we have to learn to persevere in the face of incredible odds.

    Also the cover of the book is incredible, you can feel the impending sense of desolation and hopelessness spiraling out from something going horridly wrong. Imagine being left to die hundreds of millions of kilometers from any one else of your social group.

    Ok. Ok. I’m interested. However, Ridley didn’t show up in the Alien prequel, so I’m not holding my breath just yet.

    This sounds awesome.

  • October 26th, 2013 5:29pm

    We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside

    —

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming?CMP=twt_gu

    This quote speaks to me, because as a teacher of secondary school, the amount of times 14, 15 and even 16 year olds ask me to ‘do the voices’ or say that their parents never read to them breaks my heart

    (via hotgravelpit)

    When I taught a course on SFF criticism at the U of MN, I learned that none of my students had read Tolkien, beyond the essays of his I assigned them. So I read them The Hobbit. A chapter a day, at the beginning of class. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done as a teacher.

    (via kat-howard)

  • September 11th, 2013 11:58pm

    I denied Discordia and regret nothing; I have spat into the bodiless eyes of the Crimson King and rejoice; I threw my lot with the gunslinger’s ka-tet and the White and never once questioned the choice.

    — Stephen King. “The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower”. (via fuckyeah-unclesteve)