Category Archives: Reading

Reading

Book it

A book that changed your life.
“If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat“ by John Ortberg made me want to change my life, but I’m not sure I actually changed anything.

A book you’ve read more than once.
I’m sorry to say I read “Gone With the Wind” about 20 times when I was a teenager.

A book you’d want on a desert island.
A collection of great short stories. Or a survival guide. I’m not very good with the outdoors, so that would be the practical choice.

A book that made you giddy.
I know there have been books that have made me at least very giggly, but I can’t think of any right off hand.

A book you wish had been written.
Rockford needs to use the computer, so I don’t have time to think about this right now.

A book that wracked you with sobs.
“The Lovely Bones.” I couldn’t speak for a few minutes after I finished it.

A book you wish had never been written.
That “Lost” book. I’d prefer the TV show to stand alone.

A book you are currently reading.
I’m between books. I just finished “Might As Well Be Dead.” I’ve been on a Nero Wolfe kick.

A book you’ve been meaning to read.
See the sidebar.

A meme found at Doppelganger’s 50 Books.

Reading

Spam as literature

I usually just dump spam emails into my junk folder, but Rockford called one he received to my attention this morning. It wasn’t the whatever-it-was they were peddling but the little poem at the end of the message. It was so delightful, I thought I should check out a few in my own inbox. The first — “are you happy,” sent by Alma — was Rockford’s find. I’ve edited “Moth Garbled” a little, just to make it more readable.

are you happy
by Alma
You, a horse! Oh, not a real one, of course
By the time he had finished his preparations and stowed all his electrical
belongings in his various pockets, it was nearly midnight and the house was quiet

i didn’t forgot
by Dean
That made an extraordinary long hole, as you may imagine, and reached far down into the earth; and, as I leaned over it to try to see to the bottom, I lost my balance and tumbled in
He started the machine again towards the east, and at a more moderate rate of speed skimmed over the surface of the desert

Moth Garbled
by George Knox
Many among these valued neighborhood counselors begged him not to go at all. But Kivi’s discouragement built up in Hayden a stubborn Western-Yankee resentment. Ridiculous spectacle of yourself, and everybody laughing at you.

Probably, he admitted, he was nearer to the capering Kivi than to the mulish Jess Bradbin.

With agony he managed to turn his head enough to make out their situation.

If I were only twenty again, and strong and unafraid Always so helpless and never, never think about what I may want or need or anything! There were hesitations, worries, preparations to be got through.

But such treachery to American good-fellowship he kept concealed.

He came clearly to in a hospital, with his head bandaged and Dr. He looked at their bedroom: the chaise longue, the tapestry wallpaper, the black and silver desk.

In college, that Kipling thing, For to admire and for to see, I’ve wandered oer the world so wide.

I think that I would like to be a self-respecting humanbeing, and even learn to read! I must endure a heavy penance to make up, in some tiny degree, for killing Caprice. Crittenhams owlish peering and the horrible scrambled eggs and cold toast.

Caprice and he might lie here, bleeding, stranglingly thirsty, for many nights and days.

I don’t think any of it has been published yet, but hell be another Evelyn Waugh.

He had seen no one whom he knew coming aboard. His face was thin, and people said that his eyes were kind.

But Kivi’s discouragement built up in Hayden a stubborn Western-Yankee resentment. Caprice had read only the society page, the fashion notes, and those same murder trials. Roxanna could not have noticed any ruefulness in him.

But honestly, Hay, you’re in wonderful shape. He ruled, Dead certain to be acold fall, this fall, see whatta mean? And I’m a tramp that only wants to see new towns and learn to read Plato in the Greek.

Had he passed out, had he been unconscious?

They could both die here before they were found. You always did like chatting and chinning and visiting with the lady clients, you old rogue!

To live for months overlooking a monastery garden, mystic and contemplative.

Enough so that they rather horribly suggested a funeral.

To live for months overlooking a monastery garden, mystic and contemplative. He tried to remember where he was going and just why he was going there.

There was a light, gay quality in the air.

Reading

"Early in the Morning"

American Life in Poetry: Column 077

By Ted Kooser,
U.S. poet laureate, 2004-2006
Li-Young Lee, who lives in Chicago, evokes by the use of carefully chosen images a culture, a time of day, and the understanding of love through the quiet observation of gesture.

Early in the Morning

While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher’s ink.

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.

My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.

But I know
it is because of the way
my mother’s hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.

Reprinted from “Rose,” BOA Editions, Ltd., 1986, by permission of the publisher. Copyright (c) 1986 by Li-Young Lee, whose most recent book of poetry is “Book of My Nights,” BOA Editions, Ltd., 2001. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.