PATIENT READERS OF MY RIMLESS Sea stories will, I hope, find this document of some value: it’s a PDF catalogue of every Prosatio Silban tale I’ve so far completed; at this writing, only about half have been published here. Go…
Tag: reading
The whole and entire purpose for Writing (outside of its own).
“…And Just Exactly What Is A ‘Buopoth?'”
“MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT the quaint and lumbering buopoths native to the Exilic Lands and other curious places – but to this day, little remains understood about the shy beasts beyond the proverb that ‘they will haul all day…
First Graf: The Dharma Bums
IN MANY WAYS, THIS 1958 book is better than the earlier On the Road. Kerouac’s signature stream-of-consciousness narrative style is more flowy, and the novel’s lionized centerperson (poet Gary Snyder, or “Japhy Ryder” as tDB calls him) a more noble…
Welcome to My World…Literally and Literarily
O Fellow Connoisseurs of Mythic Fiction (and Gastronomy), please: Lend me your eyes. For many years now, I have been writing occasional fantasy tales about Prosatio Silban: a mercenary cook and former holyman in a far-off land containing a vast…
First Graf (well, page): Harold and the Purple Crayon
THE FIRST BOOK I EVER read from cover to cover was Crockett Johnson’s 1955 work, Harold and the Purple Crayon. If you’re not familiar with it, it goes like this: A small boy in one-piece pajamas draws with, well, purple…
First Graf: The Histories
WERE IT NOT FOR HERODOTUS — lauded as the “Father of History,” derided as the “Father of Lies” — we would know nothing of, among other things, the tale of King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans and how it affected…
It’s Really Spelled “Hallowe’en”
(TO BE CLEAR, IT’S ACTUALLY a slight abbreviation of the phrase “All Hallow’s Evening,” AKA “All Hallow’s Even,” AKA “Hallows E’en.”) There’s something to be said about archaic or alternate spellings / renderings. For example, a beloved English teacher once…
First Graf: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
ACTUALLY, SINCE T.A.o.S.H. IS THE first published collection of all Sherlock Holmes stories, here is (also) the First Graf of “A Scandal In Bohemia,” being the first of the tales in said collection. It’s unfortunate that Sherlock Holmes has become…
First Graf: On the Road
HAVING FIRST (AND LAST) READ this shortly before a 1985-6 cross-country hitchhiking-and-bus-adventure, I’d forgotten how good it was until beginning to read it aloud to The Partner recently. A rollicking, crying-out-for-emulation 1957 work, what strikes me about it now is…
Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson
IT’S THE WAY HE BLOWS my mind. It’s the way he mixes conviction with doubt. It’s his searingly funny prose. It’s his search for Ultimate Relativity. It’s that he taught me some important Latin phrases, like “Cui bono?” and “Non…
First Graf(s): The Fellowship of the Ring
IF YOU HAVE ONLY SEEN the movie version of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you are missing out on an extraordinary literary work. Granted, it takes a while to get into — a criticism also (and often) leveled against…
First Graf: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
THIS WAS THE FIRST FANTASY I ever read — at the tender age of six or seven, IIRC — and remains one of my most beloved and oft-quoted books. In some ways it’s similar to Bullwinkle or SpongeBob Squarepants: touted…