good books Archives -

Why Do People Read Bad Books?

Recently I’ve been reading What Makes This Book So Great, by Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Jo Walton. In it, she takes various essays regarding the science fiction/fantasy genre originally blogged on Tor.com, and incorporates them under a single cover. It’s a fascinating read from a well versed and extremely well read woman who [….]

Gimbling in the Wabe – Why Do People Read Bad Books?

Recently I’ve been reading What Makes This Book So Great, a gathering of essays by Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Jo Walton. In it, she takes various topics regarding the science fiction and fantasy genre on which she blogged about at Tor.com, and incorporates them as essays under a single cover. It’s a fascinating [….]

Birthdays

On this day, December 10, in 1930, Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Perhaps poetry’s most famous recluse, most of her friendships came through correspondences. While many knew she was a writer, only about a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime and those were drastically edited to fit literary conventions of the time. After her death in 1886 (at age 55, most likely of kidney disease), her younger sister found almost 1,800 poems tucked away at her residence. The first collection of her poems was published four years later – but again, heavily edited. It was not until 1955 that her poems began to become available in unedited form.