By:
On:
In: Freedom, Reading

Being quick to judge a book might feel like intelligence, but maybe its not.  Perhaps it is a means for us to shimmy out of a difficult text and move on to something more effortless.  If we think of this exercising of our reading skills as we think of our muscles, it may be we are giving in when the possibility of gain is just ahead. And what is the price of our impatience?  That we never get anywhere worth going; that we perpetually fall short or turn to the next thing which also barely holds our attention long enough before we move to something even lessRead More →

By:
On:
In: Human Nature, Reading, Uncategorized

They sit to the side almost, left out in the sorting of literature, where poetry goes with poetry and novels with novels. The short story, the tale, while highly recognisable and democratic in the spoken form, is treated with uncertainty once it is written down. It is neither this nor that. It’s not verse. It’s prose, but it doesn’t take the reader as far. We don’t learn all there is to know about a character. We don’t watch a world gradually unfold. Not often anyway. Writer, John Cheever, says it this way: “A collection of short stories appears like a lemon in the current fictionRead More →

By:
On:
In: Freedom, Reading

Reading is following a knotted rope into a dark cave. We go into it on faith and emerge carrying with us something we didn’t have before. The particle might be small, a mere speck, but it is there, this new thing and already it has combined with others to form constellations. It’s a remarkable thing that we do, when we read…every bit as remarkable as that which the writer has managed. In fact, without the reader, the writer manages little, mere squiggles. We don’t always remember what we mean to accomplish when we set out to read and the magnitude of the feat once we haveRead More →

By:
On:
In: Creativity, Freedom, Love, Reading

We carry our cynicism on our backs as snails do in defense against certain inevitabilites, death not the smallest amongst them.  It’s best not to be shocked. Let’s not, in our naivety, be taken by surprise. Let’s put it out there, warts and all, before life slaps us squarely in the face. Our cynicism opens doors for us in social circles and we lean against lamp posts and on dinner tables with a terrible nonchalance that may, if we are lucky, look like wisdom or street smarts, at the very least. We’ve broken down traditions which were worn out echoes of less understanding days and there are moreRead More →

By:
On:
In: Creativity, Reading, Writing

  We draw them.  We colour them in.  We make them do things and somewhere along the line, we breathe life into them.  They start to move around in our minds.  They talk to us, making their preferences clear.  “Yes, I’ll do that, but not this.”  They develop proclivities and phobias.  They live. It is the weirdest thing.  In any other job, there would be alarm followed by a long ‘holiday’.  There would be flowers sent and whispers following us down hallways upon release.  Because it is weird, right? American children’s book writer, Lois Lowry says, “When I create characters, I create a world to inhabitRead More →

By:
On:
In: Human Nature, Reading, Science, Stories, Writing

It’s a tough question and if you are not feeling on top of your game, its a hand grenade.  Still, its the beginning of the year and in the spirit of continuing on with some kind of rationale, I have been attempting to answer this question for myself, but the more I have tried to answer it the more I found reasons not to do it. Reasons Not to Let’s face it!  It’s not an essential industry – well not like brain or heart surgery – not really. It’s not like farming.  Those indefatigable people who toil day in and day out to bring food to the table.Read More →

By:
On:
In: Reading

I’ve just finished a short story course with Australian writer, Patrick Holland, and throughout I read some amazing stories.  I’ve always had a fondness for the short story, perhaps because, they are distilled.  They stay with me, long after I’ve finished them.  They are kinder to the memory than the novel.    During the course we read from Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekov, Margaret Atwood, Rudyard Kipling, Jorge Luis Borges, Tobias Wolff, Graham Greene, Patrick Holland, Yasunari Kawabata and Raymond Chandler and it was wonderful.  Whether it was the sense of place in works like Greene’s, Across the Bridge, the use of dialogue and sparseness in Hemingway’s,Read More →

By:
On:
In: Reading

I’ve been reading Ebooks for some time, around three years, I think.  Now I read them almost exclusively. If I had had time to think about it, I would have held ground in favour of paper books, the smell, the weight, the way they gradually deform from handling and from then on look more loved. I am sure I would have, but I didn’t. It was around the time my old dad became more frail and because he wished to remain in his home, I began to spend more and more time between two houses, his and mine. My things needed to be portable. I wasRead More →