We’re re-christening BTSML as a .org this year, to reflect its not for profit roots and to differentiate it from a cheap books website of a similar name. We have committed to bringing you even more thrilling essays of literary derring-do and to continuing to use the royal we even though we are a band of one. Many thanks go out to our wonderful contributors and friends who are an inspiration in their literary endeavors, their books will no doubt save someone’s life one day.
As a new year tidbit, we wanted to link to a few inspiring books articles. Web Newspaper The Faster Times has an exclusive excerpt of LA Times book critic David Ulin’s new book The Lost Art of Reading. As Philip Lopate points out in his book The Art of the Personal Essay some of the earliest and best personal essays were the product of simply walking and talking (Aaron Sorkin watch out), from Sophocles walking with his scribes in the garden to Montaigne walking the filthy streets of his Paris neighborhood. Ulin’s excerpt centers on a wander around London, and the providential discovery of a bookstall so choked with riches he nearly threw out his back carrying them home.
The other link is simply a congratulations to Patti Smith, who won the National Book Award this year for her memoir Just Kids. In it Smith describes reading a Louisa May Alcott book and wanting to rush immediately home and start writing. Her book is having the same affect on me and reminds me in so many ways of Nabokov’s Speak, Memory that it’s sure to continue making and inspiring writers for decades.
*Photo by Norman Seeff
New Year, New Dot Org
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11 Jan
This entry was published on January 11, 2011 at 9:01 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged David Ulin, Lost Art of Reading, Patti Smith, The Faster Times, Walking.
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