. More fun facts from Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: While the Mycenaean Greeks had a written language called Linear B, it was known only to scribes and was used exclusively for taxation. It was also a syllabic language, meaning it had a character for each syllable, unlike […]
. One author of great reads that I share with my grandfather is Rafael Sabatini. Grandpa had a bunch of his works and I read them all. This guy knows how to write a book. You do have to skim a bit when the heroine is being purer than pure […]
* In my last entry I wrote about The Cloud of Unknowing, a guide to meditation written in the 14th century. Most meditation is done silently, in private. But there is another kind of meditation that is done out loud in public places — a way of increasing the wisdom […]
* My great friend Ken Moselle was, and still is, I suppose, very fond of the following poem: Fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly,Man gotta ask himself why, why why? Fish gotta rest, bird gotta land,Man gotta tell himself he understand. “Dad,” said the boy in ancient Greece, “what is […]
When you Google ‘intrepid solo women’s travel,’ they should have a picture of Isabella Bird. I have been reading her book about Colorado, which she visited in the 1870s, but she also visited Australia, Hawaii, Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore, India,Tibet, Turkey, Persia, Kurdistan, Baghdad, Tehran, China, Korea, and Morocco. In […]
As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the work of the poet Archilochus survives only in the fragments that were quoted in educational materials — treatises on literature and grammar books. The works of Arthur T. Nash are also fragmentary, but for altogether different reasons. As he is an author […]
Most people know Arthur T. (not Ogden) Nash for his punchy, get-in-and-get-out poetry, notably the breakfast poem and the duck poems: A Breakfast Poem What? No muffins? Face FactsNobdy cares if you see a duck where there isn’t one. Nobody. Edgy Ducks march around the periphery of consciousness Where they […]
Archilochus was a Greek lyric poet and a mercenary who lived around 700 B.C.E. (Before the Current Era) He was famous all over the ancient world for his satires, and he is credited with the invention of iambic verse, no small claim to fame. Most of his work is lost, […]
This blog is usually about books I find at flea markets and tag sales, but really it is about good reading, enjoyable reading that stimulates the imagination and gives readers insights into this crazy world of ours. I have written before about the trailblazing troika Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov, three […]
Here’s another reason to take another look at Mridula Dwivedi’s blog, Travel Tales from India: It has been named “Best Travel Blog” at the “Indibloggies” the Indian Weblog Awards. As a longtime fan of Mridula’s tales, I am just delighted that she has received this well deserved recognition. Mridula was […]