March 18, 2008
R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke
ABC - Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke. They filled and expanded the imagination of my childhood.
Here's what Ira Flatow of Science Friday had to say about Mr. Clarke's passing:
Arthur C. Clarke, author of more than 100 books including the one that made him known to many more millions, "2001: A Space Odyssey," has passed from us.Thank you for your passion and your prose. Thank you for your vision.
Thank you for speaking out on important issues, for not keeping silent.We all have favorite scenes, chapters or quotes from his novels or movies.
But my favorite remains this one not published in any novel: Years after missions to the moon had ended, Clarke was asked what he thought was the most amazing part of the whole race to the moon.
What's most amazing to me, he said, was that we could go there...and not go back.
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March 15, 2008
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November 9, 2007
I'll Corrupt My Own Kids, Thanks
We've finished reading "A Wrinkle in Time"; our new bedtime reading is "The Golden Compass."
If you just gasped in horror, this message may be for you:
Please, please don't send me any more email about how evil this book is and how it will corrupt our children. I am not interested in either your attempts at censorship, or your hysteria.
I bet you wouldn't take it kindly if I set up an email campaign to inform concerned Pagan parents (and I assume that's all of you) about the grave threat "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" could pose to our children's worldview, would you?
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July 26, 2007
Rowling Gives More Details After the Epilogue
Spoilers, in case you couldn't figure it out. Rowling gives us a few more details.
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August 16, 2006
Jeff Says I Don't Get Out Much
After reading to my four-year-old, I have come to the only logical conclusion:
The Cat in the Hat is Q.
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February 21, 2006
The thing I like best about the internet ...
(and the reason I'm glad it wasn't around when I was a teenager) is the instant obsession interest gratification factor.
I'm certain I never would have made it to classes if I had had the web in my college years. And I don't even surf porn.
I read Gaudy Night (a Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery)
And thankfully, there's more! Ooh, a whole line to read!
It's almost as fun as the Aubrey/Maturin books!
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September 14, 2005
Books
Recently on the Well-Trained Mind board, there was a thread in which people shared lists of books that really meant something to them. Books that affected their lives. Here's my list, in no particular order. These are books that either formed my mental landscape as I was growing up, or literally caused me to change my life when I was older.
* Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series
* "A Little Princess," by Frances Hodgson Burnett
* Mary Stewart's Merlin series, especially "The Crystal Cave." This is my favorite treatment of the Arthurian saga. I gave one of my sons the middle name Emrys, in honor.
* Roger Zelazny's Amber series
* "R is for Rocket" - Ray Bradbury, and
* "A Sound of Thunder" by Bradbury, the first science fiction short story I ever read.
* "A Severed Wasp" - Madeline L'Engle
* "A Wrinkle in Time" and, especially, "A Swiftly Tilting Planet," also by L'Engle
* "Dragonsong" - Anne McCaffrey
* "The Lord of the Rings," even though I didn't read it until I was 31.
* "D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths"
* "Bones of the Moon" by Jonathan Carroll. Brilliant, disturbing, bizarre stuff.
* "Jane Eyre" - Charlotte Bronte
* "Night" - Elie Wiesel
* "Immaculate Deception" - Suzanne Arms
* "Dumbing Us Down" - John Taylor Gatto
* "Climbing Parnassus" - Tracy Lee Simmons
* "The Well-Trained Mind" - Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
* "The Mists of Avalon" - Marion Zimmer Bradley
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