The Monstrosity Gazette: A Weekly Smattering of All Things Literary...

Bookish Quote of the Week:

The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. … One of my favorite things to do as a young man was wander through the stacks of my hometown library.

-Ed Asner

Today in Literary History:

On this day in 1932 John Updike was born. In a writing career of almost fifty years and as many books, the five Rabbit novels (counting the 2000 novella, Rabbit Remembered) stand out as a bell tolling, at decade intervals, for Harry Angstrom and America. Two of them won Pulitzers; one of them was reviewed as a book "that one can set beside the work of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Joyce and not feel the draft."

For more, visit Today in Literature.

Bizarre Link of the Week:

Former library president admits stealing nearly $100K
The former president of Blue Mountain Community Library in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, admitted March 9 to stealing nearly $100,000, in a plea agreement under which his wife will be allowed to enter into a first-offender program. Over nine years, Richard Leidich used the public library’s funds to support himself, his wife, and his various business interests, pilfering $99,212 from it before he was caught....
Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call, Mar. 9

Book I'm Eyeing this Week:

Gillespie and I
by Jane Harris
Harper Perennial (January 31, 2012)

Summary in a Sentence: 

From the Orange Prize-nominated author of "The Observations" comes a sweeping literary novel of one young woman's friendship with a volatile artist and the controversy that consumes him.

Read the Reviews:

Savidge Reads |  nomadreader

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Quote of the Week

If information is the currency of democracy, then libraries are its banks.

-Wendell H. Ford

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Today in Literary History...

On this day in 1930 Harold Pinter was born. The famous Pinter pause may have been learned as an only child in Hackney: at the age of eight or nine Pinter and a group of imaginary friends would gather in his back garden, where they "talked aloud and held conversations beyond the lilac tree." He also says he was deeply affected by being a child-evacuee during WWII: "'There was no fixed sense of being ... of being ... at all.'"

For more literary history, visit Today in Literature.

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Segment in which I shamelessly pimp Etsy:

Edgar Allan Poe Collage Print

by EarlyBird

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Book I'm eyeing this week:

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Algonquin, 2010

Nonfiction

Summary in a Sentence:

A handicapped woman finds unexpected pleasure in observing a snail as it resides first on her bedside table and then in a homemade terrarium.  

Read the Reviews:

Pocket Review | Algonquin Books Blog

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Quote of the Week

My lifelong love affair with books and reading continues unaffected by automation, computers, and all other forms of the twentieth-century gadgetry.

-Robert Downs

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Today in Literary History...

On this day in 1862, while rowing on the Thames at Oxford, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) began to tell the three Liddell sisters the story that would become Alice in Wonderland. Alice, the ten-year-old middle sister, was so taken with the improvised story that she badgered Dodgson to complete it; when he had it done two and a half years later he presented it to her, with his own illustrations and bound in leather, as a Christmas gift.

For more literary history, visit Today in Literature.

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Segment in which I shamelessly pimp Etsy:

Defining the Life of a Librarian Artful Hardware Pendant

by COGnitivecreations

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Book I'm eyeing this week:

The Passage
by Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books, 2010

Summary in a Sentence:

FBI agent Brad Wolgast vows to protect six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte after a government military experiment she was involved in goes bad, unleashing a toxic virus that turns humans into bloodthirsty monsters.

Read the Reviews:

Presenting Lenore | S. Krishna's Books | Hey Lady! Whatcha readin'?

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Quote of the Week

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. 

—Charles W. Eliot

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Today in Literary History...

On this day in 1594, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew was entered in the Stationers' Register. Much of the main plot seems to come from a 1550 popular ballad called "Here Begynneth a Merry Jest of a Shrewde and Curste Wyfe, Lapped in Morrelles Skin, for her Good Behaviour." By the endeth, this contribution to the shrew-taming canon was merry from only one perspective. . . .

For more literary history, visit Today in Literature.

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Book I'm Eyeing This Week:

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
by Josh Berk
Hardcover: Feb 2010
256 pages

Summary in a Sentence:

When Will Halpin transfers from his all-deaf school into a mainstream Pennsylvania high school, he faces discrimination and bullying, but still manages to solve a mystery surrounding the death of a popular football player in his class. 

Read the Reviews:

Alison's Book Marks |  Life is a patchwork quilt | Readingjunky's Reading Roost

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

"An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books...and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy."

-Augustine Birrell

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Today in Literary History...

On this day in 1931, Dorothy Parker stepped down as drama critic for The New Yorker, so ending the "Reign of Terror" she endured while reviewing plays, and that others endured while being reviewed by her. Parker was a drama critic for only a half-dozen years in a 50-year career, but her Broadway days brought her first fame and occasioned some of her most memorable lines.

For more literary history, visit Today in Literature.

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Book on my Radar this week:

In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise
By George Prochnik
Hardcover, 352 pages
Doubleday

Summary in a Sentence:

Investigates how modern society came to be so loud, explores what silence has to offer, and discusses the benefits of pursuing quiet.

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Quote of the Week

Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. 

—Lady Bird Johnson

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Today in Literary History...


On this day in 1928 Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, as Marguerite Johnson. Angelou has said that her remarkable and varied life -- prostitute, dancer, actor, writer, activist, educator, academic -- has been made possible by a "remedy of hope" made from reading, courage, and "insouciance."

For more literary history, visit Today in Literature.

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Bookish Photo Love:

© 2006 Jennifer B. Bodine.

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Book on my Radar:

Life in Year One: What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine
By Scott Korb
Hardcover, 256 pages
Riverhead

Summary in a Sentence: 

A generally historical, fun look at life during the time of Jesus.

~ Check out this interview with Scott Korb on Diana Joseph's blog.

The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

-Emily Dickinson

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Today in Literary History:

On this day in 1556 Thomas Cranmer, one of the "Oxford Martyrs," was burned at the stake. Cranmer's promotion of the English Bible and his authorship of The Book of Common Prayer are his most significant connections to Christian literature, but for fiction readers he is known through his connection to Ray Bradbury's book-burning novel, Fahrenheit 451.

 For more, please visit Today in Literature.

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Pic of the Day:

"Man on Ladder" by Quint Buchholz

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Book on my Radar:

The Solitude of Prime Numbers
by Paolo Giordano
Pamela Dorman Books (March 18, 2010)
288 pages

Summary in a Sentence:

Alice and Mattia thought they were kindred spirits, soul mates meant only for each other, but when Mattia is offered an opportunity that takes him far away, Alice is left bereft and alone, until a chance encounter years later reunites them and Alice must decide if she is willing to trust Mattia with her heart once more.

Read the Reviews:

MostlyFiction | Bibliophile By The Sea

The Monstrosity Gazette: A Weekly Smattering of All Things Literary...

"The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library."


—Ashleigh Brilliant

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Today in Literary History:

On this day in 1939, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published. Although Steinbeck believed that he had succeeded in his "very grave attempt to do a first-rate piece of work," he was so convinced that his "revolutionary" book would be unpopular and unread that he tried to dissuade his publisher from having a large first printing.
For more literary history, please visit Today in Literature.

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Literary Pic of the Week:

© 2005 Wilbur Pierce

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Book on my Radar:

Burning Bright: Stories
by Ron Rash
Ecco (March 2010)
224 pages

Summary in a Sentence:

A collection of short fiction from Southern writer Ron Rash that depict characters living in Appalachia from the time of the American Civil War to the early twenty-first century.

Read the Reviews: Between the Covers | The Dusty Hum