Philistine that I am, I had never heard of The Second Sex, a 1000-page protest of woman’s lot in life by existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, until it was given a passing nod in the TV series Emily in Paris. An over-short snark would be to say that Emily provides more insight into the life of a…
Category: Literature
Liberals Moan Over Right-wing Book Sales
Don Surber says that the lefties are getting their knickers in a twist because conservative authors such as Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and others are selling too many books. What’s wrong with writing something that people actually want to read? …the left is wetting itself over this. The Huffington Post asked: “Should The…
The Tragedy of the Week
With Ted Kennedy and Dominick Dunne passing on this week you might think this article is about one of them but you’d be wrong. No, the real tragedy of the week is the end of Levar Burton’s Reading Rainbow, the PBS show the Roots and Star Trek star used to pass on his love of…
Playboy’s Interview with Ayn Rand Fascinating, Disappointing
Though not normally on my reading list, it came to my attention that Playboy has published the text of it’s 1964 interview with Atlas Shrugged author Ayn Rand on its Facebook site. It’s a fascinating interview in which Rand easily rebuffs Alvin Toffler’s attempts to paint her views as inconsistent and out-of-touch – highly recommended…
Who is John Galt?
Steve Hayward says that if Barack Obama’s trillion-dollar tax increase is implemented that he will go on strike in the fashion of John Galt, Ayn Rand’s famous lead in Atlas Shrugged. …my bigger idea is to go all Randian and literally go on strike (and I’ve never really been much of a Rand fan, by…
Gays, Books, Tolerance and Equality
Joe Windish says that he’s got to give Focus on the Family credit for their demonstration of public high school library’s intolerance for Christian literature – credit for doing something wrong: As a gay man, I don’t want tolerance. I want “equality and justice for all.” … Their stunt is a good one. But it’s…
SFWA, Scribd.com and ePiracy and why its important
Over the Labor Day weekend there blew up a weird story that involved the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) and the website scribd.com. For those not in the know (like me), scribd.com allows users to upload text files and share them with users in a collaborative format (not unlike Flikr). Now the problem arose…
It’s a Only a Book…
…and you know the one that I’m talking about. It is, after all, the only article on the planet made of little bits of wood pulp, horse hooves, and black drops of dye (die) whose supernatural synergies grant the reader the inalienable right – nay, the duty – to kill anyone who thinks differently than…
“Happiness” by Michael Van Walleghen
From In the Black Window: New and Selected Poems. © University of Illinois Press Melvin, the large collie who lives in the red house at the end of my daily run is happy, happy to see me even now, in February— a month of low skies and slowly melting snow. His yard has turned almost…