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Archive for November, 2008

Consecrated Phrases: A Latin Theological Dictionary [2nd ed.] by James T. Bretzke

Posted in Book Dragon's reviews, Liked it, Nonfiction, tagged book reviews, books, Catholic Church, Church Latin, Latin, Protestant, reading, Roman Catholic, Theology on November 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

The Reverend James T. Bretzke is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco, and he has presented a very concise and informative volume of Latin phrases utilized in Church liturgy and practice. This slim volume covers many phrases familiar to Roman Catholics and Protestants [...]

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Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi

Posted in Book Dragon's reviews, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Loved it, tagged book reviews, books, Iran, Iran-Iraq War, Islamic Revolution, Marjane Satrapi, reading on November 20, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Forced by her parents to flee Iran in the face of the Iran-Iraq war, Marjane Satrapi picks up her story from Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (read my review here) in Vienna where her parents have sent her. Unfortunately, the safety her parents wanted for her in Vienna eludes Satrapi as she is shunted [...]

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Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Loved it, booklove's reviews, tagged 17th century France, book reviews, books, Louis XIV, Louise de la Valliere, reading, Sun King on November 19, 2008 | 2 Comments »

The death of her father and the disappearance of her white stallion set the stage for Louise de la Valliere (1644-1710), or Petite as she is affectionately called, to become a maid of honor in the glittering court of the Sun King, Louis XIV (1638-1715). Petite is pretty, athletic, pious and loveable and soon draws the [...]

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BOOKLOVE

by Jerome Stern

I have just come from an exhibition that told me that books will be replaced by electronic libraries,
talking videos,
interactive computers,
cd-roms with thousands of volumes,
gigabytes of memory dancing on pixillated screens at which we will blearily stare into eternity.
And so, in the face of the future, I must sing the song of the book.

Nothing more voluptuous do I know than sitting with bright pictures,
fat upon my lap,
and turning glossy pages of giraffes and Gauguins,
penguins and pyramids.

I love wide atlases delineating the rise and fall of empires,
the trade routes from Kashgar to Samarkand.

I love heavy dictionaries,
their tiny pictures,
complicated columns,
minute definitions of incarnative and laniary, hagboat and fopdoodle.

I love the texture of pages,
the highgloss slickness of magazines as slippery as oiled eels,
the soft nubble of old books,
delicate india paper,
so thin my hands tremble trying to turn the fluttering dry leaves,
and the yellow cheap, coarse paper of mystery novels so gripping that I don’t care that the plane circles Atlanta forever,
because it is a full moon and I am stalking in the Arizona desert a malevolent shape-shifter.

I love the feel of ink on the paper,
the shiny varnishes,
the silky lacquers,
the satiny mattes.

I love the press of letters in thick paper,
the roughness sizzles my fingers with centuries of craft embedded in pulped old rags,
my hands caress the leather of old bindings crumbling like ancient gentlemen.

The books I hold for their heft,
to riff their pages,
to smell their smoky dustiness,
the rise of time in my nostrils.

I love bookstores,
a perfect madness of opportunity,
a lavish feast eaten by walking up aisles,
and as fast as my hand reaches out,
I reveal books’ intimate innards,
a doleful engraving of Charlotte Corday who murdered Marat,
a drawing of the 1914 T-head Stutz Bearcat whose owners shouted at rivals,
“There never was a car worser than the Mercer.”

I sing these pleasures of white paper and black ink,
of the small jab of the hard cover corner at the edge of my diaphragm,
of the look of type,
of the flip of a page,
the sinful abandon of the turned down corner,
the reckless possessiveness of my marginal scrawl,
the cover picture—as much a part of the book as the contents itself,
like Holden Caulfield his red cap turned backwards, staring away from us,
at what we all thought we should become.

And I also love those great fat Bibles evangelists wave like otter pelts,
the long graying sets of unreadable authors,
the tall books of babyhood enthusiastically crayoned,
the embossed covers of adolescence,
the tiny poetry anthologies you could slip in your pocket,
and the yellowing cookbooks of recipes for glace blanche dupont and Argentine mocha toast,
their stains and spots souvenirs of long evenings full of love and argument,
and the talk, like as not,
of books, books, books.

First aired as a monologue on National Public Radio. Author Jerome Stern was the director of the writing program at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
Fall in book love

Want to find time to read?

Fall in book love.

Seek out the books that fire your passions.

Follow your intellect and your heart.

Then time will find you.

Steve Leveen in The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life.
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Archive for November, 2008

Consecrated Phrases: A Latin Theological Dictionary [2nd ed.] by James T. Bretzke

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland

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