books – Page 2 – Lena Corazon

ROW80: Taking Stock

Whew, it’s just been one of “those” weeks, one where I feel like I’m racing along on the hamster wheel, only to find that I haven’t actually tackled all those things that really need to get done. I’ve done well on the exercise and eating well goals; written consistently each weekday with the #ROW80 sprints; graded a ton of papers and lectured in my prof’s absence on Wednesday (we’ll ignore the anxiety attack I had beforehand, and the caffeine-induced freakout I had afterwards); and watched 3 movies (Haywire, The Woman in Black, and the 2006 version of Jane Eyre) and read 1 book (Lindsay Buroker’s awesomesauce steampunk/fantasy novel, The Emperor’s Edge) towards my 50/50 challenge goals. Oh, and I wrote some flash fiction, too.

Given that we’ve completed a full month of Round 1, I thought I’d do a bit of a pause-and-reflect to consider what I’ve learned and where I’d like to improve in the weeks to come.

STUFF I’VE LEARNED

Sloths are amazing. See Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
Working out in the morning makes the rest of my day better, partly because I just feel better about myself, and also because I end up with more energy.
Eating well also makes me feel better. Strawberries and spinach belong together, goat cheese is magical, candied ginger is the best candy replacement ever, and I actually think I’d rather have baby carrots than potato chips (shocking, I know).
Creating a to-do list each night helps me to evaluate what I’ve finished and what I need to tackle the next day.
Reading a good book almost always makes things better.
When I feel listless, crabby, oddly emotional, or like someone’s gummed up my brain with a bucket of molasses, I almost always need a nap. Naps are good things, and I am going to stop feeling guilty about taking them.
Hanging out with my #teamsprinty buddies each day has manifold benefits. Even if I’m not 100% thrilled with my output (quantity and/or quality), I always finish the hour with a giant smile on my face from all of our antics. If you ever need to be entertained, make yourself a #ROW80 column on your Twitter app of choice, and watch the nonsense flow. Last week we all took a trip to space on a book-shaped rocketship (powered by Dr. Pepper), accompanied by paper bags and vodka and chips. Good times, folks, good times.

STUFF I CAN DO BETTER

That to-do list I mentioned above? I’ve faltered on that one big time, and I’m really feeling the pinch of not being well-organized. I need to get back on track with prioritizing my tasks and making myself a loose schedule.
My research assistantship, not to mention my dissertation brainstorming, have fallen by the wayside in the past couple of weeks. I have to push both of these projects back up on my priority list (there’s that list again…) so I can make sure that I get things done.
Writing blog posts has also been challenging. I know exactly what I want to post for the rest of the month, and I even have some half-finished drafts sitting around… but finishing and posting them is proving to be close-to-impossible (Exhibit A: My Hugh Jackman post that was supposed to go up on February 1st, which is almost done, but not quite, and is currently collecting dust in my drafts folder). My perfectionist streak must be rearing its ugly head, because I keep scraping everything I try to write because it is not exactly perfect. Pfft.
I’ve been utterly pathetic at making the blog rounds, and at responding to comments on my posts, which makes me feel all icky. But I have a really hard time marshaling my thoughts to say anything that intelligible when I’m tired, and lately my brain has been like a fifteen-ring circus on Red Bull, with too many thoughts whirling around for me to get much of a handle on anything.

So… yeah. That’s where things stand at the moment. Now that I have a few of my goals seemingly under control, I’ll be concentrating on everything in that second list. Hopefully in the weeks to come, I’ll find a way to at least somewhat manage everything. 😀

Don’t forget to swing by and see how the other ROW80 participants are doing!

ROW80: Steady As She Goes

January 28, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 32 Comments

A completely gratuitous picture, because I can. Hugh Jackman (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

It’s been a steady, solid week of productivity here at Flights of Fancy, though far less intense than last week. I write this week’s ROW80 update while in the midst of an impromptu Hugh Jackman mini-marathon. I am refreshing my memory of his filmography circa 2001: Someone Like You, Kate and Leopold, and if I can stay awake, X-Men. It is “research” for the Hugh-themed posts I have planned for my birthday month of February… or so I keep telling myself. 😀

I’ve hit just about all of my goals for the week, though I didn’t attack them with the same fervor from last week. That was partly due to the weather — Monday was super rainy and dark, and I stayed inside and had a “manflesh”-themed movie marathon (The Two Towers, 300, and Gladiator), and the last few days have been like summer in January, with absolutely perfect beach weather. Thursday was my work-at-the-beach day, yesterday was a grading-at-Starbucks day, and today was all about cleaning my apartment. Still, I managed to get things done.

Here’s my week in review:

Writing: I made it to all of this week’s ROW80 writing sprints, and while I had a few slow days, I wrote a handful of new scenes for my steampunk WIP. There’s still lots of work to be done with outlining and plotting and the like, so in the week to come, my goal is to make planning a priority. However, I can’t be too disappointed with my output for the week: 5705 words. Not too shabby!

Day Job: My thesis advisor gave me the green light on my draft, and I’ve sent it off to the other members of my committee. The early word is that I should be able to defend by the end of the quarter (early March). In addition, my advisor sent along her initial feedback. Overall, it’s positive, with observations of my “stunningly beautiful prose” and my intellectual contributions. However, she has a number of critiques for me to keep in mind for the future of the project, including any articles I may write.

I’ve been a little angsty about the critiques, if only because they remind me of all the work that still needs to be done in order for me to create scholarly work that is worthy of publication. I’ve also been more than a little stressed because I’m going to have to take over my advisor’s class for a couple of weeks, since she will be out of town on a family emergency. I’ve guest-lectured before, but this… this will require lots of planning and lecture-writing and whatnot. I have a few days to pull together the first class (on WWII-era cinema and women’s roles in the military), but I’m definitely a little nervous. Cross your fingers that I survive!

Social Time: I saw Underworld: Awakening with my friend Melissa last Sunday, and I was supposed to go to a birthday party last night, but it got canceled… until the cancellation was retracted a couple of hours later, when I was already in pjs with a stack of rented movies to watch. But I’m off to see Haywire tomorrow, which should be exciting, as I’m hearing lots of great things about it.

Exercise: I worked out 4 times this week, and I’ve been on track with my healthy meals and snacks. I treated myself to In-n-Out on Thursday, and grabbed an Its-It yesterday since it was hot, but the good news is that the taste of fast food hasn’t left me with crazy cravings for more. I’m still eating at least one salad a day, and my need for snacking has decreased big time. Better yet, the at-home Pilates is getting easier, and I can once again touch my toes without feeling too sore. Progress!

50/50 Challenge: I read Angela Wallace’s ELEMENTAL MAGIC this week, a lovely urban fantasy/paranormal romance that I really enjoyed. I also discovered Redbox and rented a whole bunch of movies, including Crazy, Stupid, Love (I think I FINALLY understand the Ryan Gosling obsession now), the 2011 Conan the Barbarian (Jason Momoa’s bare bottom is probably the only good thing about the film), and Real Steel (ohhhhh, so good, and Hugh has STILL got it. So.Damn.Hot.). I’m 10 books ahead of schedule, and a few movies ahead too, so that’s nice.

-oOo-

In case you missed it, our beloved #teamsprinty, the ROWers who sprint together on weekdays (11 am PST!), were featured in my “Wicked Wednesday” post, which was a battle between two of Orlando Bloom’s beloved characters, Legolas Greenleaf from The Lord of the Rings and Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean. At the moment, Team Elf is winning with 10 votes, followed by those of you unable to choose between (7 votes). Team Pirate is trailing with only 6 votes. If you’re inclined, head over and cast your vote today, or just pop over and check out the comments. They are probably the most entertaining and hilarious I’ve ever received on the blog.

Don’t forget to swing by and visit the rest of our wonderful ROW80 participants!

ROW80: It’s Business Time

January 15, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 43 Comments

It’s my 3rd check-in for ROW80, and I seem to be making some progress with my goals! I’m still not completing everything that I’ve pledged to do, but this week was another strange, rather jumbled one. I spent all of Tuesday traveling (that 5.5 hour drive is no joke), Wednesday unpacking and prepping for class, and Thursday and Friday recovering.

One surprise that happened is that I had to drop the one class I was going to take, as it overlapped my TA-ship by 50 minutes and I wasn’t able to get permission to leave early. That means that I will now only be going to campus Wednesday nights for class, and 2 hours Tuesday mornings for office hours. I now have a lot of free time on my hands, and that makes buckling down to a regular routine all the more imperative. Starting this week, it will be Serious Business Time, and I will hold myself to my goals.

Here’s my week in review:

Writing: I’ve decided that for this round, I want to accomplish 2 things with writing: (1) finish a rough draft of TELL ME NO LIES and (2) figure out how PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE ends (I want to be able to finish my draft of PPT during Round 2). My goal is to rewrite and edit the first 4 scenes of TMNL, and I got started with that through the ROW80 wordsprints on Thursday and Friday. I wrote 1486 words on Thursday and 1631 words on Friday, which isn’t too shabby at all. I also spent a couple of hours brainstorming and reading more of THE BARBARY COAST for research purposes.

Day Job: I finished the first draft of my thesis last Sunday, and gave my advisor a hard copy on Wednesday, despite technology’s attempts to thwart my efforts (I had to deal with not one, but two, on-campus printers running out of paper, along with a paper jam and other ridiculousness). She’s promised to have it back to me ASAP, so I have more editing in my future (although she tells me that she thinks the changes will most likely be minimal).

I actually have a full plate when it comes to school, including brainstorming dissertation topics, working on a conference paper proposal, and preparing a grant proposal. I’m also a research assistant for my advisor, and so I need to set aside time to do some work for her. Not taking classes is actually a blessing in disguise, provided I can buckle down and get things done. In the week to come, my focus will be on my research assistantship and dissertation brainstorming.

Social Time: I’ve been really good at this! Monday I had a ‘farewell dinner’ of sorts with one of my high school besties, Tuesday I went to a ‘welcome back to town’ late-night happy hour with a couple of grad school friends, and this morning I had a brunch/work/shopping outing. I’m really proud of myself, though, because I invited a few friends out for drinks at my favorite bar tonight. Given that I rarely initiate things (I have been burned in the past by people who say they will come out and instead flake), this is progress.

Exercise: There’s been incremental improvement here. I went for a 2.5 mile walk on Wednesday, and a 4 mile walk on Thursday. I had wanted to throw in a couple of days of at-home Pilates, but going to bed late and not getting enough sleep meant that when I woke up Friday and Saturday, I was less than inclined to work out. The goals for next week: go to bed by midnight, wake up by 7:30, do some form of physical activity at 8 am.

50/50 Challenge: I finished three absolutely wonderful books: HER OWN DEVICES by Shelly Adina, STEAM & SORCERY by Cindy Spencer Pape, and HER DARK BARON by fellow ROWer, Nadja Notariani.

I also got started with a little movie-watching: The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (meh), Peter Pan starring Jason Isaacs and Jeremy Sumpter (cutesy, a little cheesy, but Jason Isaacs is really hot), and The Warrior’s Way, which is this absolutely amazing collision of ‘East-meets-West’ — it’s about a disgraced Asian assassin who flees to a tumble-down Wild West town to escape his vengeful clan, and ends up learning about love and life and things beyond murdering people. It’s bloody and gore-filled in a sort of comic book way, but I loved it. Geoffrey Rush has a small role as a drunken former outlaw.

-oOo-

Is everyone else getting down to business time, or are you flailing about like me? To encourage everyone pursuing Serious Business, I leave you with the New Zealand duo, Flight of the Conchords. Their song, “Business Time,” might be one of my favorites. 😀

*insert requisite ‘put-down-beverages’ warning*

ROW80: The First Check-in of 2012

January 7, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 52 Comments

It’s my first check-in post of 2012! I’m at the end of my month-long winter vacation, and preparing to head back to school on Tuesday. I’m reluctant to leave my parents’ house — I’ve had a wonderful break, and I hate saying goodbye to them — but I am trying to remember that I have slightly over six months remaining in Santa Barbara, and then I will be back here for at least another year, if not two.

The last week has been a bit of a muddle in terms of tackling goals; I imagine that once classes start up, it will be easier to maintain a normal schedule. Here’s what I’ve managed to get done in the meantime:

Writing: Nothing new here, though I finally received my copy of THE BARBARY COAST, Herbert Asbury‘s 1933 “informal history of the San Francisco underworld” (Asbury is also the author of THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, which Martin Scorsese adapted into film). I’m excited to read through the book, as it’s much-needed research for my steampunk tale, TELL ME NO LIES.

Day Job: I had promised my advisor that I would have a complete draft of my thesis to her around December 15th, but between family, the holidays, friends, and getting sick last week, I fell behind in my work. I am happy to report, however, that I am roughly 2-3 paragraphs away from completing the dratted project. There are still holes that will need to be filled in before I defend the final version, but for the moment it is mostly done. It is just over 25k, which is about 75 pages long, and while I can’t help but glare at it (this is what happens when one has been dragging along the same project like a ball and chain for over 3 years), deep down I have an inkling that it is not altogether terrible work… and might actually be rather good.

Social Time: Ironically, this is the one area where I have excelled this week. On Monday my friends and I went out for a sing-along showing of West Side Story, followed by cocktails and sushi. I’ve seen one of my other friends twice this week for study parties/marathons of Big Bang Theory, my new favorite television show. And my mom and I have gone out a few times for shopping and eating out.

Social Media: I fell behind here — no new blog posts besides Monday’s ROW80/Inspirations post, and not much by way of blog-hopping, except for the ROWers I was able to visit on Monday and Tuesday. This is another area I’m hoping will improve once I get back to school and fall into a routine.

Exercise: Another place for lots and lots of improvement. I haven’t gotten any exercise this week (my mom is currently yelling at me to get a move-on, so I really need to take her advice), but tomorrow I will hopefully pull it together and get started.

50/50 Challenge: This is actually a goal that I forgot to include during my first ROW80 post. I’m taking on the 50/50 Challenge, where participants pledge to read 50 books and watch 50 films during 2012. I haven’t watched any new movies yet (except for maybe half of Contagion, which was okay, but not nearly as good as Outbreak), but my reading has shot through the roof in the last week, thanks to my brand-new Kindle. My progress can be found on my shiny new 50/50 Challenge Page.

I’ve read a total of 8 books since 2012 started, including Diane Capri’s wonderful CARLY’S CONSPIRACY (a must-read for anyone who enjoys murder mysteries and lady sleuths), Shelly Adina’s steampunk novel LADY OF DEVICES (I’m currently reading the sequel, HER OWN DEVICES and loving it), and Suzanne Collins‘s HUNGER GAMES trilogy. I am narrowly resisting the urge to write in caps about how obsessed I am with THE HUNGER GAMES, and Katniss, and Peeta (swoon), but suffice it to say that I have not been this taken with a series since I read Karen Marie Moning’s FEVER books last fall.

Next up on the TBR list is the 2nd-4th books in Diana Gabaldon’s LORD JOHN series (the spin-off from the OUTLANDER books), followed by a few novels by my WANA friends: AGAIN by Diana Murdock, DRAWING FREE by Elena Aitken, and ELEMENTAL MAGIC by Angela Wallace.

-oOo-

There’s definitely room for improvement, but in my defense, I am slowly easing my way into this round of ROW80 (thank goodness we have 80 days!). How’s everyone else doing so far?

Wicked Wednesdays: Literature and The Adventuring Academic

November 9, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 32 Comments

Today kicks off Wicked Wednesdays, which is much more tame than it might sound at first. Wednesdays will now be the day when I blab about guilty pleasures and oh-so-pleasant vices, broadly conceived.

Today’s topic: books about scholars!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved books about intrepid academics who leave behind the dusty archives of the day-job, only to find themselves embroiled in the midst of heart-pounding adventure. It is, perhaps, wishful thinking on some level. As a PhD student in sociology with a (un?)healthy obsession with historical archives, I harbor the hope that one day, my pursuit of knowledge might take me on a voyage or two of my own.

When it comes to literature, I find that academics make wonderful protagonists. By nature, they’re curious, intelligent, and good at digging for clues. Better yet, they don’t quite know how to stay away from potentially dangerous objects, because, y’know, the drive for knowledge is all-consuming. They also have the potential for fish-out-of-water hilarity — just think of what happens when a staid and stodgy scholar is yanked out of her comfort zone (classroom, library, well-furnished office) and thrust into life-threatening danger.

Here are my top 5 favorite books starring academics:

5. A Wizard in Rhyme, Christopher Stasheff

Christopher Stasheff’s A Wizard in Rhyme series was one of my first books I read featuring a scholarly protagonist. The books fell into my hands during my freshman year of high school, passed along by my friend Ella once she learned that I was a fellow fantasy lover. The main character, Matt, is a English PhD student working his way through a thorny dissertation when a series of strange runes leads him into an alternate universe, where speaking in rhyme is the key to wielding magic. With a brain filled with poetry and verse, he finds himself an unlikely hero, inadvertently battling the forces of evil in order to free an imprisoned queen.

Stasheff’s novels are filled with humor and adventure, along with a dash of romance, which I love. My only regret is that Stasheff seems to have abandoned the series; the last book published was The Feline Wizard, in 2000.

4. Spell of the Highlander, Karen Marie Moning

Right, I admit it: I have a huge weak spot for romance novels involving harried, overworked academic gals (this has nothing, I repeat, nothing, of my own personal fantasies bound up in this, I swear). Moning, who writes some of the best bodice-rippers starring brawny, kilt-wearing, Scottish alpha men, earned my undying love and devotion when she wrote Spell of the Highlander, featuring anthropology PhD student Jessi St. James.

Jessi’s world changes when she accepts a package sent to her dissertation advisor: a strange mirror that just happens to house a ninth-century Scottish Druid who is, of course, sex on legs. This book is not about scholarly hunts for knowledge (unless, er, you count carnal knowledge?), but my list would be sadly incomplete without it. 😉

3. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Katherine Howe

I stumbled upon this book in the bargain section of my local Borders during its going-out-of-business sale. I’d never heard of it before, but the blurb hooked me immediately with the magical words “Harvard graduate student,” “Salem witch trials,” and “unearth[ing] a rare artifact of singular power.”

Connie Goodwin, Harvard graduate student and main character, discovers a strange old key hidden in the bookshelf of her grandmother’s abandoned home. The key contains a slip of paper with the name “Deliverance Dane” written upon it, and Connie finds herself obsessed with uncovering this mysterious woman’s identity. Her search is ultimately bound up with her own family’s history and her identity, and involves plenty of digging about in archives, along with more than a few brushes with danger.

As an aspiring scholar-novelist, I was quite happy to learn that Howe, who has a PhD in American and New England Studies herself, began writing the book while studying for her doctoral qualifying exams. She also drew on her own family history for inspiration (her bio notes that she “is a descendant of Elizabeth Proctor, who survived the Salem witch trials, and Elizabeth Howe, who did not”).

Continue reading

ROW80 Check-In: Chilling Out

September 7, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 16 Comments

Many, many thanks for all of the responses to my last check-in post. All of the support, advice, and hugs were most appreciated. You are all incredible!

In more blog award news, Gene Lempp and Heather over at My Demon Spirits passed the Liebster onto me, and on Monday I also received Appreciated Follower award from Marie Andrews. Both Gene and Marie have been wonderful friends over the past few months that I’ve participated in ROW80, and I’m quite grateful to them both. Heather is a new friend that I’ve made through the Writers’ Campaign, and I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.

I love seeing all of these blog awards going around — it gives me a really lovely sense of community. Gene’s latest post provides an excellent discussion about the importance of blog awards, which I highly recommend checking out. In addition, Marie’s latest short story, “Iron Butterfly,” is available over at Nevermet Press, so swing by and read that as well. Finally, Heather’s delightfully creepy flash fic for our Campaign challenge is up, and you all must check it out.

I have done my best to chill out over the past few days. Not focusing on the WIP has helped me to feel a little less pressured, though I will admit that I am starting to go through withdrawal. I peeked at TELL ME NO LIES the other night, and had one of those lovely serendipitous moments where I thought, “Wow, I wrote this?” It is raw, it is unpolished, it is a bit like a diamond in the rough, but I might be able to get a decent novel out of it at some point. 😀

Here are some other things I’ve done this week:

Continue reading

Things I Love Tuesday: My First Story

August 23, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 7 Comments

Welcome to Things I Love Tuesday, my weekly post where I get to showcase the things that tickle my fancy.

One of my favorite things about visiting my parents is the chance to dig up treasures from my youth. I know, I know — I’m only 24 years old, so we’re not talking a huge span of time. Still, I am inclined towards nostalgia and I have a tendency to save things (though nothing on the level of Hoarders folks), which means that when I dig through the storage bins in the garage, there’s always a chance of uncovering something precious but forgotten.

I’ve saved the normal sorts of things, like old report cards, essays that received high marks, awards from elementary school, but what I really treasure are the books that I’ve kept, especially the ones from when I first learning how to read.

Today’s find: my copy of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, a present for my 5th birthday. What makes these books extra special, however, is that it’s also where I wrote my first story.

The front page has an inscription from my mom, written in red crayon. It still smile whenever I read it, because it brings back memories of the day she wrote it for me.

"Jamila will have a birthday soon! She will be 5 years old. Jamila will go to an ice show with her mom and dad."

My mom taught me how to read and write before I got to kindergarten. I’m her first-born, and she thought that I would need the skills when I started school. For the record, I ended up incredibly over-prepared.

The reading bit was an accident; she read to me every day, and eventually I started reading back to her. Once I mastered that, she taught me letters, words, and sentences. When I had those building blocks in hand, there was no stopping me. I wanted to make stories of my own.

Granted, they’re a little silly, disjointed, and short, like the above: “I am Jamila on a big cat.” Still, I tried for a little complexity:

One thing I had down by this point, quite clearly, is my name. One thing I didn’t have down, and that was the whole “books go from left to right” business.

On the right, we have the start of the story: “Jamila story book by Jamila Jamison Sinlao.” (No grasp of possessive nouns, either.) As it continues,

the story. [I am] 4 and I will be 5 next year and my TV…

The fox ate the rabbit and the lamb.

the end of the story

What I really love? The fact that my mom wrote out, “The end of the story” so I could copy it down myself. Gotta love parents who encourage their children’s endeavors.

Really, what we have here are my first attempts at flash fiction. :p But what I also think it shows is that for me, my love of reading and writing fiction sprang up together.

When did you start writing fiction? Was it an early hobby, or something that you adopted later? Any fun stories about your first stories?

ROW80: Trying to Shake the Panic

August 21, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 19 Comments

I’m trying to reconcile myself to the fact that August is rapidly coming to a close. The thought fills me with a bit of melancholy. My younger sister will be headed back to LA for her sophomore year of college at the end of the week, and I’ll be leaving for Santa Barbara in about a month. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do on the thesis, and I’m feeling that familiar wave of panic over getting this first draft completed.

I’m also starting to stress out about the workload that I’ll have to tackle in the upcoming quarter: finishing and defending the thesis, taking two seminars, and teaching two discussion sections is a lot more than I’ve had to deal with in a while. I haven’t taught a discussion section in over a year, and while I love being in front of a classroom, I’m definitely a little rusty. Add this to the fact that I’m actually just tired of taking classes (only 4 left till I’m free of them!), and it makes for a fair amount of trepidation.

Anyway, onto some positive things. The highlights for the week included:

Catching up on my CampNaNo word count. tell me no lies is now 32.5k long, and I am slowly imposing structure upon the mad tangle of scenes that I’ve written. Only 17,438 words to go!
Diagnosing the plot problem that has plagued Path to the Peacock Throne for the better part of two months. The solution, however, means that the story is going to be a two-parter, but for the saga and adventure that I have in mind, I’ll need two books to tell Liandre’s tale. It’s a lofty goal, but one that I can’t wait to tackle. This might just be one of my Round 4 goals. 😀
Overhauling the “Novels In-Progress” page on the blog and adding new synopses for the three stories that I’m juggling. This has been a goal for a while now.
Following the #ASA2011 twitter feed for the annual American Sociological Association meeting, currently happening in Las Vegas. The venue of course means that there are many pithy observations about consumption and commodities, along with highlights from the sessions. Someone has also gone and made twitter accounts for social theorists Emile Durkheim (@emiledurkheim) and Talcott Parsons (@talcottparsons), which are hilarious, and filled with lots of nerdy soc jokes. For example:

Finally, I read a book! This has been on my to-do list for a few weeks now. I devoured Elizabeth Redfern’s Music of the Spheres, which is a murder mystery that takes place in 18th century London. It actually reminds me a fair bit of what I’m trying to do with tell me no lies, so it was both entertaining and useful.

Today is a hard-core work day, so I’m off to make some headway on the thesis, and hopefully add another 1600 words or so to my WIP. Have a wonderful week, all!

Friday Free-for-All: Books, the Precious Life-Blood

August 19, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

For this week’s Friday Free-for-All, I’ve had books on the brain. The wonderful and amazing Jenny Hansen posted yesterday about the way writers read, and today about her love affair with books, and it set me to thinking about all the reasons why books are awesome.

One of my favorite quotes about books comes from John Milton’s pamphlet Areopagitica, a treatise denouncing censorship and Britain’s Licensing Order of 1643. It’s a stirring defense of freedom of speech, and contains some of my favorite invocations of the power of books and the written word:

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them… Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on a purpose beyond life.

Milton’s words are eloquent and grandiose, his arguments lofty and soaring. Areopagitica is worth a read, and is available on the public domain from Project Gutenberg.

I love the idea that books contain the “living intellect that bred them.” Indeed, whenever I read a book, I feel connected in some small way with the person who wrote it. Reading allows me to traverse time and place, to commune, if only for a few hundred pages, with the mind that gave birth to the book in my hands.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy

Tag: books (page 2 of 2)

ROW80: Taking Stock

ROW80: Steady As She Goes

ROW80: It’s Business Time

Wicked Wednesdays: Literature and The Adventuring Academic

Things I Love Tuesday: My First Story

ROW80: Trying to Shake the Panic

Friday Free-for-All: Books, the Precious Life-Blood

Lena Corazon

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