Mickey Smith : 20×200

Rats, I missed out on another Mickey Smith photograph from the art site 20×200.

The most recent one (titled More Books) is great, but I still love “Word Study” more. My favorite remains Blood (blogged earlier here)

Here’s another, but you really ought to check out the whole series:

The Library of Art Garfunkel

If you ever found yourself wondering what Art Garfunkel has read over the last forty years you no longer have to wonder. Just go find out yourself.

The 39 Clues : Planning a Blockbuster & Longer Book Titles

Scholastics is hoping to invent the next Harry Potter. Philly Inquirer has the details.

Also due to Google, the titles of books are growing. Ian Williams:

Publishers want to put as many keywords in the title as possible to get the click-on traffic for online buyers.

Field Song

The narrow hollow
of her spine, lying fallow

-Kevin Young, Jelly Roll

Sci-Fi Fans Top 10

Top 10 Books

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov   
6. The Stand by Stephen King      
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury   
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Top 10 TV shows

1. Firefly
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. The X-Files
4. Heroes
5. Stargate: SG-1
6. Doctor Who
7. Star Trek: The Next Generation
8. Babylon 5
9. Star Trek
10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

For a Limited Time Only : Books You Should Buy

I don’t know how long this sale will last but Amazon has a nice hardback collection of the works of (ahem) William Shakespeare (ahem) -which normally sales for 300 clams- for 60 American dollars. At 38 volumes it comes to less than two bucks a hardback. I nearly bought this when it was one sale for 120. Glad I waited.

3 Books Every Christian Writer/Thinker Should Read Every 3 Years

• GK Chesterton’s Heretics & Orthodoxy

• CS Lewis’s An Experiement in Criticism

• Jacques Barzun’s Simple & Direct

3 Things I Do at Amazon

• I click-surf the “So You Wanna” lists

• I plan how to spend my gift certificates months in advance

• I read reviews and vote yes or no

Top Ten Modern Books of Poetry

Inspired by the Telegraph’s list and as a companion to my list of Ten Best Books of Poetry from Dead Poets I here present my top ten favorite books of modern poetry written by poets who at the time of writing are alive. Catchy title, I know. I should mention that I’m drawing from a shelf that carries 200+ books of poetry. So while I may not be an expert in the field I’m no neophyte.

Resin by Geri Doran

In every book, or in every book worth reading, there is a period of conversion (or if you want to use an insipid description: of falling in love) that must take place before a book can begin to work on your mind. I remember the moment when the scales fell off and Geri Doran’s debut book began to open unto me. I’ve written a full review that can be found here: The Unnameable Holy.

Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace by the Human Form by Matthea Harvey

There’s something very much like bungee jumping in reading the poetry of Matthea Harvey. In her debut volume she leaps from object to object as though stone to stone crossing a stream and we are dragged along or carried aloft by her intense delight in the world. A full review of her third book “Modern Life” can be found here: So This Is How You Live in the Present.

Polar by Dobby Gibson

For a book so framed and focused on snow, so dark with winter, there is a brightness and a warmth that breaks out constantly that transforms the world much like snow. Dobby Gibson’s first book is centered on the delights of veiling and unveiling that the world undergoes. The title is not, as you would think amongst the frigid imagery, the earth’s poles, but rather opposites; the book presumes a divide, a barrier that must be overlooked or healed.

Top Ten Books of Poetry from Dead Poets

The Telegraph’s Top Ten Poetry Classics got me wanting to make my own list of Favorite books of poetry. I’ve broken them into two lists, poets alive and poets that are dead. I was going to limit it to the modern era, but I would’ve missed Edgar Lee Masters so I stretched it backwards to include him and upon finding that I was near ten (finding comfort in such tidy numbers) I added Dylan Thomas who I like well enough to round out a top ten list.

Collected Poems by E. E. Cummings

Like man, Cummings was the poet that drew me into poetry. The name of this blog comes from one of his poems and I have written about many others. Here are three of the poems I’ve discussed: 1. Noster was a ship of swank 2. Jehovah Buried, Satan Dead and 3. a thrown a

Circus Days & Nights by Robert Lax

For many years I’ve felt that the circus is the only great metaphor for life so I was thrilled to find someone who shared my belief. Robert Lax patterns his circus poems on the creation myth, working through the creative acts to illuminate wisdom and love. If King Solomon were around today he would be reading Robert Lax.

Cien Sonetos de Amor by Pablo Neruda

My relationship with Neruda began with the famous “pink book” (that has appeared in several films, most recently “Dan in Real Life”) which was translated by Stephen Tapscott. My Guatemalan born, Spanish speaking wife, has revealed Neruda to me in the original language causing my appreciation of Neruda and my depreciation of Tapscott’s translation to grow concordantly. Until the new translation comes out we will make do with out own translations of Neruda’s fine sonnets of love.