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Tag Archives: literature

An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland by Michael Dirda (2003) – BR00035 (2007) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 3 2007

Plot or Premise

The author is a book reviewer for the Washington Post; this is the story of his life up until graduation from university.

What I Liked

Dirda was recommended to me by a colleague from work, whose appetites for reading are far more literary than mine. He actually recommended Bound to Please, which is a collection of Dirda’s reviews of more literary prose from throughout history, but I tripped over this book first. I’m quite glad I did as I probably won’t read the collection of essays until I’ve read most of the tomes reviewed, but An Open Book is a fantastic autobiography.

It reads in some place like Angela’s Ashes without the darkness of Irish poverty. However, it is not without conflict or family dysfunction during the author’s childhood, and he tells the story in places with openness and unashamed personal bias.

The main part of the story recounts Dirda’s intellectual progress as he moved through comic strips from the newspaper (p.49), pun and joke books (everyone sing: “great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts”!), the TAB book club (p.66), the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series (p.90), a brief stint with romance novels (p.201), and the importance of great literature to challenging society and even changing history (p.290). It also includes his non-literary education – playing with BB guns (p.81), understanding firsthand how hard his father’s job was (p.185), learning about art and music (p.267), the ceasing to care about grades when writing essays and the corresponding improvements in marks (p.310), the contribution of early influences in his life to later character traits (p.320), and looking back at one’s life (p.321).

The book recounts his life relatively linearly in time, yet with lots of interesting digressions that veer away from developments in his personal life and situation with the book he was reading at the time.

What I Didn’t Like

It would have been interesting to see more of the reactions from teachers throughout the author’s life, including perhaps even tracking some of them down. It is hard to imagine exactly how certain ones would have reacted to his precocious reading of more advanced novels, and the existing allusions to some of their reactions are rudimentary at best. As well, the final decision (to become a freelance journalist upon leaving university) is rushed in the story and negates much of the relaxed pace to that point.

The Bottom Line

See the early influences on a literary book reviewer.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, biography, book review, Chapters, Good Reads, hardcover, library, Library Thing, literature, non-fiction, PolyWogg, prose, stand-alone | Leave a reply

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe (1996) – BR00013 (2001) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 18 2001

A mixed-tone argument that you can be “addicted” to reading and owning books, with some examples of book hoarders from years-gone-by.

Continue reading →
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, biography, book review, Good Reads, library, Library Thing, literature, non-fiction, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, reference, self-help, stand-alone | Leave a reply

Ruined by Reading: A life in books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz (1996) – BR00010 (2001) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 18 2001

Schwarz starts with a commentary by a Chinese scholar that some people are handicapped by reading too much, and not thinking enough about what they read. From there, she looks at the books she has read in her life and the role they have played. It is not a heavy analytical tone throughout, but rather a personal commentary on the books that have been important to her in her life, and the elements of her life that took place in and around books.

Continue reading →
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, biography, book review, Chapters, Good Reads, Google, hardcover, Kobo, library, Library Thing, literature, non-fiction, Nook, PolyWogg, prose, reference, stand-alone | Leave a reply

Countdown to Retirement

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Retirement!

My Latest Posts

  • Gallery: 2004 – June – Seb & Patricia’s weddingSeptember 19, 2023
    The resort/auberge, Seb and Patricia’s ceremony at the church, reception, and the drive back to Ottawa the next day
  • Gallery: 2004 – June – Bike ride, baby shower, anniversary flowers and wedding showerSeptember 18, 2023
    Bike ride along the river, baby shower for Stephan and Myung, anniversary flowers, and wedding shower for Alex
  • Gallery: 2004 – May – Tulip Festival, housewarming, and cottage lifeSeptember 18, 2023
    Dinner guests (Robyn, Aliza); the Tulip Festival around the Arboretum and Dow’s Lake; a large housewarming; and then opening the cottage for May long weekend
  • Gallery: 2004 – April – Moving day, dinner guests, and EasterSeptember 17, 2023
    Moving into the new house at Parkdale, our first dinner guests (Becky and Dean) and Easter in Peterborough
  • 2003 – A year in 4 photosSeptember 17, 2023
    Since Andrea and I didn’t yet have a digital camera, the photos in my digital collection for 2003 are all ones that were scanned at some point, partly as I recall, to go on the new PolyWogg website I was designing at the time. In March, Andrea took a work trip to Hong Kong. There … Read more

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