All great writing starts with a sentence. But what is it that makes a sentence great? Could it be grammar, syntax, style, word choice, information, meaning, common sense, passion etc? Acco...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2014/05/when-good-people-write-bad-sentences-by.html
Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, who was chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, an editor of the Great Books of Western Civilization, and a senior associate at the Aspen Institute f...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2014/03/six-great-ideas-by-mortimer-adler.html
“As a rule,” urges Franklin Newton Painter in his critically acclaimed classic, Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism, “we should read only books of recognized excellence, and read them...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2014/01/elementary-guide-to-literary-criticism.html
Pierre Bourdieu, a philosopher by education, and an anthropologist and sociologist by choice, is one of the most esteemed names in twentieth-century French thought. With his election in 1981 to ...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/11/sketch-for-self-analysis-by-pierre.html
Discipline and Punish (1975), is a genealogy of power based on particulars of penal history, and is considered Foucault’s “out-of-the-ordinary,” “intellectually charismatic,” and “so...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/09/discipline-and-punish-by-michel-foucault.html
“And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-story-of-philosophy-by-will-durant.html
Recently while listening to WNYC, I heard a segment about the lack of diversity in children's literature. While the US's population is becoming more diverse, it is apparently not reflected in c...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-green-knowe-books-multiculturalism.html
When I reread the Green Knowe books, what struck me most about them was how much time the children in the books - Tolly, Ping, Ida, Oskar, Susan,and Jacob spent exploring the outdoors. Tolly clim...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/childhood-and-exploring-nature.html
Since we were early for our 2 PM house tour, we decided to explore the gardens. Lucy talks about designing and building the gardens in her memoir Memory in a House, which also contains some black...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/visiting-lucy-bostons-house-part-2.html
Two weeks ago, some friends and I toured Lucy Boston's house and garden. My friend Val had read Boston's books; her husband Dave hadn't heard of Boston but wanted to see the old house. We took a ...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/visiting-lucy-bostons-house.html
Lucy Boston had led an adventurous life for a woman of her time. She had dropped out of Oxford University to become a nurse during WWI and worked in a hospital in Normandy. She had married her c...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/memory-in-house-part-1.html
My first exposure to Lucy Maria Boston's Green Knowe series came when my older brother took a an introduction to children's literature class during his first year in college. He was required to r...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/introduction-to-children-of-green-knowe.html
"Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is ...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/03/development-is-process-of-continual.html
"INVERT THE MENTAL MAP YOU HAVE OF BRITAIN, IRELAND, AND WESTERN EUROPE. TURN IT INSIDE OUT. BLANK OUT THE LAND INTERIORS OF THESE COUNTRIES - CONSIDER THEM FEATURELESS, AS YOU MIGHT PREVIOUSLY ...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/02/water-sea-roads.html
In chapter 13, Macafarlane and David Quentin follow the Ridgeway, a track over the chalk downs of Neolithic origin, using cross-country skis. They ski past two great Neolithic sacred sites, Silbu...
On October 29th, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the tri-state area. I was lucky enough to be unaffected as I live on a hill in a central portion of Queens but I had two family members who lost power f...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/02/silt-part-2-fighting-sea.html
WARNING: THE BROOMWAY IS UNMARKED AND VERY HAZARDOUS TO PEDESTRIANS. WARNING: DO NOT APPROACH OR TOUCH ANY OBJECT AS IT MAY EXPLODE AND KILL YOU. The "Silt" chapter of the boo...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/02/silt-part-1-land-and-time-under-sea.html
Macfarlane's journey begins on the Icknield Way, which runs over the chalk downs of Sussex. He starts out on a bicycle along an old Roman road that runs past an Iron Age hill-fort. As he cycles p...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-old-ways-and-supernatural.html
In his starting section, "Path", Macfarlane admits that not all walkers are benign or appealing. While I think he is a little hard on Morris Dancers and people who walk in sandals (p. 23) he does...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/walking-depression.html
Macfarlane begins the book with a brief overview of writers who wrote about walking and a short listing of different types of paths around the world and throughout history. He mentions that some...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/paths-time.html
Macfarlane likes to walk. In The Wild Places, he visits mountains, woods, water. In The Old Ways, he follows the ancient paths that cross the British isles, that go through wood, by the sea sho...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/introduction-to-old-ways-journey-on_20.html
My first exposure to Robert Macfarlane happened a year ago when I picked up a battered copy of The Wild Places in order to shelve it. Instead, I checked it out from my branch and stayed up past m...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/introduction-to-old-ways-journey-on.html
I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards. —Albert Einstein Stephen King’s bestselling book is part memoir, and packed with funn...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-writing-by-stephen-king_23.html
Please join us for the next two months as we discuss Stephen King's critically acclaimed memoir. Share your views on writing (and thinking) and stay tuned for more posts. Thanks.
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-writing-by-stephen-king.html
Moran's account of giving birth to her first child is absolutely terrifying. I'm not sure if she ended up in a hospital with an incompetent staff, or whether this is standard at NHS hospitals in ...
https://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2012/09/kids-or-no-kids.html