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Beiträge, die mit Literature getaggt sind

‘Celebrity’ ‘Authors’ - individual quotes

Maybe children’s books tend to be recommended by ‘adults’, promoted by people and newspapers with a financial interest and bought by their parents based on the author name? Just a thought and maybe something to discourage (not the book buying of course).

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/10/jamie-oliver-pulls-childrens-book-from-shelves-after-criticism-for-stereotyping-indigenous-australians-ntwnfb

#Literature #Children #Bookstadon #Books
#children #books #literature #bookstadon

And more distressing news

Is it a matter of alternatives to reading, the ‘mechanisation of reading in children’s education a culmination of generations growing up believing that reading is simply a ‘skill’ and not reading to their young children, library closures (fierce in the UK), taking them to libraries and buying books?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/05/report-fall-in-children-reading-for-pleasure-national-literacy-trust

#Reading #Bookstadon #ReadingForPleasure #Children #UK #ChildrensLiterature #Literature
#uk #children #reading #literature #childrensLiterature #readingforpleasure #bookstadon

Francis Bacon provides “a tight and fitting set of lessons for development into a strong and well-thought-of worker in any area of endeavor” #blog #amwriting #literature

https://therationalthinkersblog.blogspot.com/2024/05/lessons-from-francis-bacons-of-great.html

Lessons from Francis Bacon's Of Great Place

Francis Bacon's essay,  Of Great Place , provides a tight and fitting set of lessons for development into a strong and well-thought-of worke...
therationalthinkersblog.blogspot.com
#literature #amwriting #blog

#israel #palestine : #war / #history / #narrative / #comprehension / #peace / #humanization / #prime / #literature

„LEARNING EACH OTHER'S HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
Palestinians and Israelis”

https://traubman.igc.org/textbook.htm
#war #history #israel #literature #peace #palestine #narrative #comprehension #humanization #prime

“In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography.”

—Andrew O’Hagan’s celebration of James Boswell, London Review of Books, 5 Oct 2000

4/5

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n19/andrew-o-hagan/self-hugging

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
Boswell’s way of talking about himself can seem to us very modern: pre-Freud and pre-tabloid, he talks in a shockingly open way about the nature of his own (and other people’s) desires, affections, tribulations and thoughts of death. He also suggests the quality of his own delight. He is a self-watcher and a self-hugger. And his way of looking at other people – including Johnson – reveals him to be a harbinger of the documentary techniques and psychological modes of enquiry we now take for granted. In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography. He wrote like hell, and the full fragrance, the authentic buzz, of his own life and period, such as it was, rises with Flemish exactness from every other sentence he chose to write down.

Andrew O’Hagan · Self-Hugging: A Paean to Boswell

Admiration is defined by Johnson in that Dictionary as ‘taken sometimes in a bad sense, though generally in a good...
Andrew O’Hagan (London Review of Books)
#literature #biography #scottish #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #jamesboswell

“A fool can utter a brilliant sentence but it seems quite rare for a fool to be able to write an admirable biography of seven or eight hundred pages…”

Jorge Luis Borges asks, Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson & write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?

3/5

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #Borges #JorgeLuisBorges

A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell | Jorge Luis Borges | The New York Review of Books

We have to think that just as Sancho is the companion Quixote sometimes treats badly, we see Boswell in that same relation to Dr. Johnson: a sometimes stupid and loyal companion.
Jorge Luis Borges (The New York Review of Books)
#literature #biography #scottish #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #jamesboswell #jorgeluisborges #borges

James Boswell (1740–1795) – a man for whom the word “scapegrace” might have been invented – was born #OTD, 29 Oct.

A Happy Bozzy Birthday thread

1/5

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-boswells-scotland-106667503/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
Early on, James had served notice that he was not cut out to follow in his father’s strait-laced footsteps. Scots are well known for being torn between dour conformity and impetuous rebelliousness, a contradiction emphatically personified by Boswell father and son. When James was 18, he developed a passion for the theater and fell for an actress a good ten years older. After Lord Auchinleck banished him to the University of Glasgow, Boswell, still under the spell of his Catholic mistress, decided to convert—tantamount to career suicide in Presbyterian Scotland—and ran away to London. There he lost interest in Catholicism, caught a venereal disease and decided he wanted to be a soldier.

James Boswell's Scotland

The author of the Life of Samuel Johnson spent much of his own life trying to escape the country of his birth
Smithsonian Magazine
#literature #biography #OTD #scottish #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #jamesboswell

If William Shakespeare were writing his works now instead of 425 years ago, he would be, and remain, unknown. Too difficult to read.

The literary geniuses of our age are therefore also our postal workers and janitors, never to be discovered, not even by the AI internet archeologists of the future, because AI rates as best that which is most predictable.

Peak civilization is not ahead of us.

#history #literature #PeakCivilization
William Shakespeare in a 1960s era tenement flat
#history #literature #peakcivilization

So by the way, the epic of Princess Fatima was an amazing read. But sadly the longest English translation to date only includes 11 episodes out of 455. And even those in an abridged version.

Who do we talk to about getting a fuller translation?...

#epics #WomensEpics #translation #literature #AmReading #folklore #women
#folklore #amreading #literature #Women #translation #epics #womensepics

4. Russia

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Elif Batuman)

Shorter essays about people who engage with Russian literature, including the author herself. Stories like organizing a Russian literature conference in California, or her summer study in Uzbekistan, or the history of the Ice Palace. Interesting read, although I didn't always like the author's personal attitude.

https://www.amazon.com/Possessed-Adventures-Russian-Books-People/dp/0374532184

#books #bookstodon #nonfiction #Russia #literature
#russia #books #bookstodon #literature #nonfiction

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

In June 1914.

James Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories depicting the Irish middle classes in and around Dublin during the early 20th century, is published in London.

Dubliners at Project Gutenberg:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2814

#books #literature
Dubliners / by James Joyce. - London : Grant Richards, 1914. - 278 p. ; 20 cm. Frontespizio

Dubliners by James Joyce

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers.
Project Gutenberg
#books #literature

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ... A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)

~Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924)

#books #literature
#books #literature

Czech writer Franz Kafka died #OTD in 1924.

Kafka's works were not widely known during his lifetime, and he published only a few of his stories. Most of his major works were published posthumously by his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, despite Kafka's instructions to destroy his manuscripts.

Books by Franz Kafka at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1735

#books #literature
Last known photograph of Franz Kafka. Most likely taken in 1923. A monochrome image of a well-dressed gentleman wearing a suit, exuding elegance and sophistication.
„Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben…“ – Anfang des Manuskripts zu Der Process, 1914/15 "Someone must have slandered Josef K...." - Beginning of the manuscript for The Trial, 1914/15. "The Trial" follows the story of Josef K., a chief clerk at a large bank, who is suddenly arrested by mysterious agents one morning. The nature of his crime is never revealed to him, and the entire legal process he faces is shrouded in ambiguity and absurdity. Despite being allowed to go about his daily life, Josef K. is continually drawn into a bewildering and nightmarish legal system. "The Trial" has had a profound impact on literature and philosophy. Its themes of alienation, existential dread, and the absurdity of modern life resonate with existentialist thinkers and writers. The novel has been interpreted in various ways, including as a critique of totalitarian regimes, a reflection on the nature of guilt and innocence, and a commentary on the complexities of the human condition.

Books by Kafka, Franz (sorted by popularity)

Project Gutenberg offers 73,680 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.
Project Gutenberg
#books #literature #OTD

#OTD in 1940.

John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

The book was first published in April 14, 1939. The book won the National Book Award & Pulitzer Prize for fiction, & it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]."

#books #literature
Cover of "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, depicting a man standing and facing a rural landscape with mountains, beside him a seated woman and two children, all next to an old car.
#books #literature #OTD

This one arrived yesterday 😊 Looking forward to reading it!

#AmReading #books #bookstodon #China #literature
The cover of the book shows a Chinese style painting of a forest landscape. The title says "Tales of the teahouse retold: Investiture of the Gods." By Katherine Liang Chew
#books #bookstodon #amreading #literature #china

My new favorite quote, from the footnotes for Antoninus Liberalis' #mythology book:

"A hooked line cast into antiquity pulls in many other lines, all sources of red herrings!"

😂

#storytelling #Classics #literature #MythologyMonday
#storytelling #literature #mythologymonday #mythology #classics

Ulysses is available at Project Gutenberg:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air."

Ulysses, First lines, Ch. 1: Telemachus

~James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

#books #literature

Ulysses by James Joyce

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers.
Project Gutenberg
#books #literature

Also, while on the topic of King Arthur legends:

Please for the love of god someone translate Escanor to English!

We have an actual Arthurian love-hate romance for grumpy Sir Kay. How is this not a thing yet?!

#storytelling #KingArthur #translation #medieval #histodons #literature
#histodons #storytelling #medieval #literature #translation #kingarthur

Let´s celebrate, today is Public Doman Day!

Plenty of new titles are available now and volunteers at @DProofreaders will have plenty of work ahead.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
The Giant Horse of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Money for Nothing by P.G. Wodehouse
The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
Hunting for Hidden Gold by Franklin W. Dixon

#books #literature
1/
#books #literature @DProofreaders

There was a poll that stated—Rowling’s opening line in the HP series is one of best in the world. Someone posted about how there are a bunch of other opening statements that are better.

Here’s one of my personal favorites, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (in English):
“It is inevitable — the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

What are some of your favorite opening lines in literature? 😊
@bookstodon #books #literature #writing #OpeningLines #bookstodon
#writing #books #bookstodon #literature #openinglines @bookstodon group

Goethe's #Faust is described as "the greatest work of #German literature."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%27s_Faust

You can have sex with an under-age girl and you can have people killed for interfering with your real estate project. You can literally make a deal with the devil, and after all that, you'll be forgiven.

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen.
He who constantly strives can be redeemed

Now, I'm not explaining anything, just sayin'.

#billionaires #literature
young businessmen in a club lounge, contemplating their next move
#billionaires #german #literature #faust

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