Quality interweb mischief from Jared Bridges
A visit to Borders bookstore over the weekend found me unable to resist picking up a copy of Conn and Hal Iggulden’s new book The Dangerous Book for Boys. I first learned of the book a week or so ago when one of its authors, Conn Iggulden, gave an interview to The Colbert Report (you … Read more
You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you can judge a reader by the books he or she reads, right? Well, my logic may be faulty, but this all but disqualifies Mitt Romney in my book (no pun intended): When asked his favorite novel in an interview shown yesterday on the Fox News … Read more
One of the reasons I love Walker Percy is because he writes into his novels gems like this: In his strange new mood he made the following observation: people notice very little indeed, ghost-ridden as they are by themselves. You have to be bleeding from the mouth or throwing a fit for them to take … Read more
My good friend Charles Halton likes to play tag, and apparently I’m “it,” or one of a few “its” al least. It’s summertime, so I’ll play along the recent TV personality’s little book meme. Here goes: 1. One book that changed your life. The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton 2. One book that … Read more
I’ve never been a big fan of Cliffs Notes. Though the publisher calls their product “trustworthy study guides,” we all know what they’re used for 99 percent of the time. They encourage laziness, illiteracy, and all the other bad things your high school English teacher warned you about. There was one occasion, however, that I … Read more
Part of the trouble with reading six or seven books at a time is that some really good works get set aside as I “sneak a peek” at other volumes, which in turn get cast aside in favor of other titles, and so on — it’s quite the vicious cycle. Call it attention deficit disorder, … Read more
It’s not often that a novel undergoes such scrutiny as has Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. Debunking the wildly popular thriller has become a virtual industry unto itself, and not without warrant. Brown’s fictional account of a “search for truth” was designed to push the buttons and step on the toes of the faithful. Controversy … Read more
A review of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel, Gilead.
Those of you with children are probably aware that one’s habits of personal study tend to be affected upon the arrival of the little one(s). In my case, the birth of our son caused my rate of reading to take a drastic downturn, especially in the first month. Now that things are beginning to settle … Read more
One book that’s been in the news lately, aside from The DaVinci Code, is Tom Wolfe’s latest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons—a novel about the culture and activities of campus life at an elite American university. The book has been reviewed widely in conservative circles, and even caused a mild media tizzy recently when it … Read more