The secret of flight is this — you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.
Michael Cunningham; A Home at the End of the World
nationalbook: The 2012 National Book Awards are one week from today! We’ll be streaming the event live at www.nationalbook.org on Wednesday, November 14, beginning at approximately 7:15pm. Have some friends over for an Oscars-party-esque, literary soiree and cheer for the Winners as they’re announced! More info about the Awards and this year’s Finalists can be found here.

nationalbook:

The 2012 National Book Awards are one week from today! We’ll be streaming the event live at www.nationalbook.org on Wednesday, November 14, beginning at approximately 7:15pm. Have some friends over for an Oscars-party-esque, literary soiree and cheer for the Winners as they’re announced! More info about the Awards and this year’s Finalists can be found here.

Of course we do. One can never have enough books.

Of course we do. One can never have enough books.

thisoneandonlylife

Norman Mailer’s apartment. Norman Mailer’s former home in Brooklyn Heights is for sale. Mr. Mailer died in 2007. Following the death last year of the author’s sixth and last wife, Norris Church, Mr. Mailer’s son Michael Mailer returned to the apartment and is now preparing to put it on the market, with the proceeds to be split among his father’s nine children.

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.

Albert Camus; Notebooks, 1935 1942


[Something we should all be mindful of after yesterday’s election. Let’s move forward now and make some real healthy and good changes, always being mindful of what’s going on right now.]

I try to make writers actually see what they have written, where the strength is. Usually in fiction there’s something that leaps out—an image or a moment that is strong enough to center the story. If they can see it, they can exploit it, enhance it, and build a fiction that is subtle and new. I don’t try to teach technique, because frankly most technical problems go away when a writer realizes where the life of a story lies. I don’t see any reason in fine-tuning something that’s essentially not going anywhere anyway. What they have to do first is interact in a serious way with what they’re putting on a page. When people are fully engaged with what they’re writing, a striking change occurs, a discipline of language and imagination.
Marilynne Robinson (via mttbll)

mcnallyjackson:

Both Flesh and Not, the latest and presumably last collection of essays by David Foster Wallace, is on the shelf as of this morning. Unpacking the boxes, we agreed that we both desperately want to and really don’t want to read this immediately; this is it; what’s the rush, etc. What we want to read asap though: each chapter is separated by a double-page spread of American Heritage Dictionary definitions lifted from the vocabulary lists Wallace famously kept. They are organized alphabetically, from abattoir to ylang-ylang (which, really, didn’t Wallace ever see an Herbal Essences commercial?). Asian tree oils aside, many are words we don’t and want to know because we think they’ll reveal all sorts of truths about the great man.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Now there’s a nice shift in power.

Now there’s a nice shift in power.

Nice reading nook.

Nice reading nook.

menthalightfoot: Places I want to be: The Strand Bookstore, New York City It’s seriously my favorite place in the world. LOOK AT ALL THE BOOKS. And they’re all very reasonably priced. It’s also FOUR FREAKING STORIES. There’s the basement, first floor, second floor (where the YA literature lives—*drool*), and the third floor, which I’ve only been on once (it’s their rare and antique book section). Looks like a great bookstore.

menthalightfoot:

Places I want to be: The Strand Bookstore, New York City

It’s seriously my favorite place in the world. LOOK AT ALL THE BOOKS. And they’re all very reasonably priced.

It’s also FOUR FREAKING STORIES. There’s the basement, first floor, second floor (where the YA literature lives—*drool*), and the third floor, which I’ve only been on once (it’s their rare and antique book section).

Looks like a great bookstore.

Always be reading.

Always be reading.

If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.
David Foster Wallace; Up, Simba!

I Voted Early, So I’m Done … Now … On With The Reading And Writing Posts!

If you could open a bookstore, what would you put in it?

Would it be everything? Would you specialize it to a certain genre? Style? What would  you fill it with?