Name That Author

[bfh]

I believe it's Anna Quindlen - another Pulitzer Prize winner.

[wrdsandwrks]

I believe it's Anna Quindlen - another Pulitzer Prize winner.

Right! B. You're up!

The first quotes about reading were from her book, "How Reading Changed My Life". The last ones from her latest book: "Good Dog. Stay."

I picked Anna Quindlen because her book, "How Reading Changed My Life" had a very strong emotional impact on me. I hope you guys don't mind me sharing it here.

I was sitting in a Barnes and Noble bookstore about 5 or so years ago, doing one of my all time favorite things to do. At that time it was even more rare for me to have the opportunity at sit in a bookstore and read a book, because my children were younger then. I like to browse around and collect a stack of books that sound interesting and sit down in one of the chairs and read for as long as I can get away with it. So I picked up "How Reading Changed My Life" and started to read. I hadn't gotten very far into the book, when I started to weep uncontrollably. I mean deep sobs and tears started and I couldn't stop them. It was a good thing I was hidden away in the back of the store because I was quite embarrassed. It's just that some of the quotes I put up here, and others about her reading childhood like, "But I felt that I, too, existed much of the time in a different dimension from everyone else I knew.", reminded me so much of my own childhood. When I was a child I read in bed until "just one more page" wouldn't buy me any more time and the lights were put out, then under the covers with a flashlight until I was discovered. I would read in class with a book hidden behind a textbook, trying to look like I was paying attention.

It was a part of me that I had let die when I was sixteen years old and I took the PFAL line of "put away all your other reading materials for three months" to heart and put them away for three months that turned into thirteen years. Even thirty or so years later, after being out of TWI since 1987, this was part of me that was still dead. Oh I still read books and lots of them, but there was something missing. Something in the back of my mind still said that I had to be reading something "spiritual" or at least something practical. Anyway something came alive in me again after that. I've regained something that was lost. And I'm trying to catch up on all that lost reading time...

[bfh]

Wrds,

Giving up reading, that is so sad. And I'm so glad that you got over it and started reading and enjoying it.

I love to read too!

And apparently, I was a total reprobate when I was in TWI. On the WOW field I hid

Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and various other books, one at a time of course,

under the front seat of my car and would go to the park alone to read them.

I'll post a new one in a tiny bit.

[bfh]

New Author:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

[GeorgeStGeorge]

e e cummings?

George

[bfh]

It's not e e cummings.

[anotherDan]

(((((((((wrds))))))))))) I knew this before, but we are kindred spirits!

bfh, I'm enjoying your quotes. Thank you!

Edited May 1, 2008 by anotherDan

[wrdsandwrks]

Wrds,

Giving up reading, that is so sad. And I'm so glad that you got over it and started reading and enjoying it.

I love to read too!

And apparently, I was a total reprobate when I was in TWI. On the WOW field I hid

Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and various other books, one at a time of course,

under the front seat of my car and would go to the park alone to read them.

Thanks, b.! I can see why you hid them in your car. I remember getting in trouble for reading "The God Smuggler" when I was a WOW. I guess it wasn't "wayish" enough or something.

Edited May 1, 2008 by wrdsandwrks

[wrdsandwrks]

(((((((((wrds))))))))))) I knew this before, but we are kindred spirits!

Thanks Dan! I knew it too. (((((((((((((((Dan)))))))))))))))

And thanks for starting this Name the Author Game. It's a lot of fun and good learning too.

[bfh]

Here's another poem:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

[WordWolf]

It's not e.e. cummings, and it's not Ogden Nash. And I've READ this poem, and I'm sure I can't name the poet.

[bfh]

One more poem:

Shadows cast by the street light

under the stars,

the head is tilted back,

the long shadow of the legs

presumes a world taken for granted

on which the cricket trills

Edited May 2, 2008 by bfh

[doojable]

I'm sure this is neither T.S. Elliot.

It reminds me of Robert Frost - but the style is still different.

'Tis nice to look in here and read all of the selections though!

[wrdsandwrks]

Here's another poem:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

I recently read this poem in my daughter's 4th grade literature book. I can't think of the name of the author right now.

[bfh]

Here's a few more clues:

e e cummings, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Ogden Nash were all contemporaries of this poet.

Like e e cummings, his early poetry was influenced by Imagism.

He was a pediatrician and practiced medicine throughout his life.

Many of his poems are short because he wrote them on prescription pads.

He was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963.

He influenced many of the poets of the Beat Generation, including Allen Ginsberg, and wrote the introduction to Howl.

His first and last name are almost the same.

[anotherDan]

cool clues, and I still don't know!

[bfh]

William Carlos Williams penned the poems.

First poem - "The Red Wheelbarrow"

Second poem - "This is Just to Say"

Third poem - "Shadows"

I'd like to hear about someone else's favorites,

so I would like to pass this to someone who hasn't had the chance to post much.

[anotherDan]

Good job, bfh. Since I've gone already, I'll let another jump in

[bfh]

Hi anotherDan,

Since nobody has jumped in, maybe you could go ahead and take it.

After all, you haven't posted since the first one.

And that way, we could keep the thread movin'.

[bfh]

Well, I guess anotherDan must be off fishing or something -

So, in the interest of moving this thread along

I'm going to post something.

New Author:

"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things;

look here, - three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab;

the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold

is but the image of the rounder globe, which like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn

but mirrors back his own mysterious self."

"Call me Ishmeal."

[wrdsandwrks]

Well, I guess anotherDan must be off fishing or something -

So, in the interest of moving this thread along

I'm going to post something.

New Author:

"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things;

look here, - three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab;

the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold

is but the image of the rounder globe, which like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn

but mirrors back his own mysterious self."

"Call me Ishmeal."

Is it Melville?

[bfh]

Yes, it is Herman Melville.

Both quotes are from Moby Dick.

"Call me Ishmeal" is the infamous first sentence of that weighty tome.

Wrds, take it away....

[wrdsandwrks]

Try this:

The volumes of interpreters and commentators on the Old and New Testament are but too manifest proofs of this. Though everything said in the text be infallibly true, yet the reader may be, nay, cannot choose but be, very fallible in the understanding of it. Nor is it to be wondered, that the will of God, when clothed in words, should be liable to that doubt and uncertainty which unavoidably attends that sort of conveyance, when even his Son, whilst clothed in flesh, was subject to all the frailties and inconveniences of human nature, sin excepted. And we ought to magnify his goodness, that he hath spread before all the world such legible characters of his works and providence, and given all mankind so sufficient a light of reason, that they to whom this written word never came, could not (whenever they set themselves to search) either doubt of the being of a God, or of the obedience due to him. Since then the precepts of Natural Religion are plain, and very intelligible to all mankind, and seldom come to be controverted; and other revealed truths, which are conveyed to us by books and languages, are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to words; methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious, in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter.

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Darwin?

George

[wrdsandwrks]

Darwin?

George

No it's not Darwin.

Here's another:

EPISTLE TO THE READER -

I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is little acquainted with the subject of this treatise- the UNDERSTANDING- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least. For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown.