An ethereal meditation on longing, loss, and time, sweeping from the highways of Texas to the canals of Mars–by the acclaimed essayist and author of Shame and Wonder
David Searcy’s writing is enchanting and peculiar, obsessed with plumbing the mysteries and wonders of our everyday world, the beauty and cruelty of time, and nothing less than what he calls “the whole idea of meaning.” In The Tiny Bee That Hovers at the Center of the World, he leads the reader across the landscapes of his extraordinary mind, moving from the decaying architectural wonder that is the town of Arcosanti, Arizona, to driving the vast, open Texas highway in his much-abused college VW Beetle, to the mysterious, canal-riddled Martian landscape that famed astronomer Percival Lowell first set eyes on, via his telescope, in 1894. Searcy does not come at his ideas directly, but rather digresses and meditates and analyzes until some essential truth has been illuminated–and it is in that journey that the beauty is found.
Tag Archives: Literature
Literary Views: London Review Of Books (July29)
Preview: ‘The New York Times Book Review – 125 Years Of Literary History’
ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
From the longest-running, most influential book review in America, here is its best, funniest, strangest, and most memorable coverage over the past 125 years.
Since its first issue on October 10, 1896, The New York Times Book Review has brought the world of ideas to the reading public. It is the publication where authors have been made, and where readers first encountered the classics that have enriched their lives.
Now the editors have curated the Book Review’s dynamic 125-year history, which is essentially the story of modern American letters. Brimming with remarkable reportage and photography, this beautiful book collects interesting reviews, never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, and spicy letter exchanges. Here are the first takes on novels we now consider masterpieces, including a long-forgotten pan of Anne of Green Gables and a rave of Mrs. Dalloway, along with reviews and essays by Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more.
With scores of stunning vintage photographs, many of them sourced from the Times’s own archive, readers will discover how literary tastes have shifted through the years—and how the Book Review’s coverage has shaped so much of what we read today.
Book Review: ‘Pessoa – A Biography’ (NY Times)
Views: France Honors 150th Anniversary Of Marcel Proust’s Birth
#France is marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of famed #novelist Marcel #Proust. He penned much of his greatest work, the seven-volume saga “In Search of Lost Time”, along the shores of Cabourg, in Normandy. Under the fictional name of Balbec, the town was put on the literary map. To find out more about Cabourg’s Proustian legacy, and Proust’s short but hugely influential career, we take you to The Villa of Time Found, whose immersive exhibit takes visitors on a sensory trip back in time.
Literary: Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room Of One’s Own’ Read By Natalie Dormer
Listen to the first chapter of Virginia Woolf’s classic A Room of One’s Own, read by Natalie Dormer.
Download the full audiobook here: https://adbl.co/3grA9PY
A Room of One’s Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf’s blazing writing on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare’s imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman’s need for financial independence and intellectual freedom. This Penguin Classic is performed by Natalie Dormer, best known for her standout role as Queen Margaery in Game of Thrones, as well as her roles in The Hunger Games and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Interviews: Writer George Saunders – A Swim In A Pond In The Rain (Podcast)
On a special LARB Book Club episode of the Radio Hour, Boris Dralyuk and Medaya Ocher are joined by George Saunders, author of four collections of virtuosic short stories and of the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize.
His latest work is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. Examining individual works by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, and Nikolai Gogol from a variety of angles, Saunders teases out lessons for writers and readers alike. During the conversation, he discusses what fiction can teach us about ourselves and each other, shares his experiences teaching these stories over the past two decades, and reflects on the role of humor in his work.
Great Life Quotes: ‘So Live Your Life’ – Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (1768-1813)
Read by Shane Morris. – Chief Tecumseh was a great Native American warrior chief who was leader of a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh’s War. Although his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian history.
Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief, warrior, diplomat, and orator who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. He traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting tribal unity.
Greatest Poetry: ‘Ithaka’ By C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
Constantine Peter Cavafy was an Egyptiot Greek poet, journalist and civil servant. His consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in Greek poetry, but in Western poetry as well. Cavafy wrote 155 poems, while dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form.
Ithaka
BY C. P. CAVAFYTRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Literature: ‘Printing And Binding A Book’ (Video)
Discover the stages involved in creating a hand-printed and hand-bound book. This is an example of octavo size, meaning it’s made up of pages that were printed eight to a sheet of paper.
Video timeline: Process at the printers: Arranging metal letters: 00:09 Preparing type: 00:25 Applying ink to the type: 00:32 Pressing paper onto the inked type: 00:40 Process at the binders: Sheets folded and cut: 01:07 Folds hammered: 01:24 Sheets sewn onto bands: 01:28 Rounding the spine: 01:43 Attaching cover boards: 01:56 Clamping the book and trimming pages: 02:20 Endbands sewn: 02:29 Leather cover stuck on: 02:41 Decoration added with hot metal tools: 03:11
