Category: Classic Literature
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Free short stories : where do I find sites for short stories and essays?
Where do I go to find sites for short stories and essays? Free short stories are pretty easy to find on Gutenberg, but the truth is that sometimes you need a curated list rather than just a single search term wading through the public domain sludge. I’ve got you. Here’s the list of the best…
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Alfred Bester and The Light Fantastic
In working through Robert Silverberg’s Science Fiction 101 (a compilation of essential Silver-era speculative fiction and analysis of how to write it), I came across The Light Fantastic by Alfred Bester in the bibliography. When I talk about silver era, I mean the post-Baron Edward John Moreton Draw Plunkett Lord Dunsany, post-H.G. Wells, pre-Nebula Award…
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The Road — Cormac McCarthy’s Inferno
I have avoided reading McCarthy’s The Road since it came out in college predominately because, after reading All The Pretty Horses, I didn’t think I needed that kind of bleak post apocalypse in my mind. You remember what you want to forget and forget what you want to remember, after all. And frankly, knowing what…
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RL Stevenson “Kidnapped”
From May to July in 1886, RL Stevenson published a boys’s novel Kidnapped in the magazine Young Folks. Everyone from Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Hilary Mantel cited it as an influence. It’s a delightful little novel by RL Stevenson. I only know him through Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (A novel I need to review,…
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Little Women themes
After a long time leaving the promise unfulfilled to my bride, I finally read and will reflect on Little Women themes and symbols. I’m wasted as a scholar. But I try my best to be a careful reader. What are the main Little Women themes? It seems to me the Little Women themes that came…
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πραεις — meek inherit
Happy are the πραεις (humble/meek/connotation of focus on others and friendliness) because (κληρονομησουσιν) they will have the law grant them the inheritance — their lot — of the earth (γην). The land. The Land. Never realized until this morning that γην is the word for promised land in Hebrews and my guess is also in…
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ὀπίσω — Get in Line
ὀπίσω — is the word for “in the back of” or “hereafter” or “follow” or “get in line.” From Wiktionary: It’s the word Jesus uses to Peter in Matthew 4:19 when he says “Δευτε οπίσω με” and also in Matthew 16:23 “’Υυπαγε οπίσω με, Σατανα” The rebuke “get behind me Satan” is the same as the…
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Jefferson Market Library
Snagged this photo of Jefferson market library during a stormy Sunday in August. Soon after this photograph, we got rained on.
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Disrespect Hard Copies of My Books, Please
Recently someone I care for witnessed their young child snatch this copy of Little Women I had on hand — they took it away from this child, reasoning that this child might disrespect hard copies of my books. My response, immediately, was, “It’s really okay.” This person said, “He’ll tear it.” I said, “That’s okay…
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Blake’s Wilderness
Call it rehumanization that reabsorbs what was separated out. In this reunification the horrific becomes beatific; tygers and lions “sing, they seize the instruments of harmony” (FZ 124.17). Remetamorph, “further up and in,” as C.S. Lewis says in The Last Battle, reads like a salmon migration upstream, out of division into unity and not to…
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12 Years a Librarian
In June of 2019 I finished 12 years and begin my 13th year as a librarian at Queens Library, my eighth year serving as a supervisor. With this milestone I believe I am accomplishing one of the pillars of a human being’s life journey: finding meaningful work. We all know the game of information seeking…
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Man and Serpent by Aesop
Today for Myths, Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales, we’re reading Man and Serpent by Aesop. Myths, Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales is another one of my podcasts featuring bedtime story readings — in this case the myths, legends, folklore and tall tales of the world. Now and again, I read one of my own stories…