In my early twenties, I took Kerouac a little too seriously. The case could be made I read On The Road at exactly the right moment, during the worst summer of my life, a time that would shape and change me in so many ways. As school resumed, I found myself in the company ofContinue reading “a nocturnal generation”
Category Archives: reading
a call to action
I read an article on LinkedIn yesterday about throwing the world’s biggest party when we come out on the other side of the pandemic. “It will be a party for hugging our family and friends,” says writer Dennis K. Berman, “but also for acknowledging that the virus, in its twisted way, gave us a giftContinue reading “a call to action”
letting go
I’ve never been great at letting go of things. But I’ve come to realize letting go might be the single most important lesson to be learned. The one constant in life is that everything changes. If we aren’t able to adapt to that change–to let go of the way things used to be–then we windContinue reading “letting go”
confessions
In How Fiction Works, James Wood explores Dostoyevsky’s use of layered character: Dostoevskian character has at least three layers. On the top layer is the announced motive: Raskolnikov, say, proposes several justifications for his murder of the old woman. The second layer involves unconscious motivation, those strange inversions wherein love turns into hate and guiltContinue reading “confessions”
the things that last forever
The storm of life is raging for me at the moment, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. Let’s just say I’ve been thinking differently about what I want. Doing so has made me contemplate the temporality of things and shift my focus regarding what’s important. I finished Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with theContinue reading “the things that last forever”
learning my lesson
In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho uses the titular character to give voice to confronting the lessons we’ve learned: “…before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams,Continue reading “learning my lesson”
within and without
I’ve been in a men’s book club for about two years now. This time last year, we read Parker J. Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Much of the book is spent exploring how to draw out one’s soul in a world of compartmentalization. Palmer makes the case we must reflectContinue reading “within and without”
what happens?
Oftentimes, when I’m writing, it’s easy to lose sight of the important questions. I get wrapped up in my ideas, my self-prescribed brilliance, my ego. By holding too tight to what I’m making, I prevent the story from becoming what it wants to be. With storytelling, the simplest question is this: what happens? When weContinue reading “what happens?”
a pocket companion
When I was inEurope a few years back, I bought copy of Kerouac’s On The Road at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. I carried this book with me across France, through the Netherlands, and then into Italy. It stayed in my pocket on a flight across the Atlantic, back to the Midwest. I read itContinue reading “a pocket companion”
swimming upstream
I’m currently reading Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with the Dead. It’s a tough read, but absolutely worthwhile. In one passage, he advocates for “reading upstream,” which is to say looking to those who influenced your influences: I took a couple of classes in medieval literature but I came to adore the anonymous masterpiece Sir GawainContinue reading “swimming upstream”
