New Year -- New Resources

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Holidays

My sister gave us a wonderful present this year, the DVD of Young At Heart: You're Never Too Old to Rock, a documentary about the Northhampton, Mass. chorus with an average age of 80 which has toured the world singing classic and new rock songs, from "Forever Young" to "Schizophrenia."

And check out Karen Armstrong's article about the original message of Matthew and Luke's birth of Jesus story in the LA Times. (Just like Amahl and the Night Visitors!)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Holiday Reading (and listening)

If you grew up watching Amahl and the Night Visitors on NBC (as I did), and you long nostogically for a Christmas more about giving than buying, you should be aware that several CD's of the opera are available, including the original 1951 cast album. If you like Operettas, you can't do much better than "This is my box."

I picked up some biographies for reading over the holidays, among them Jay Parnini's William Faulkner, and like all the best such books, it is making me want to go back and reread my favorite novels, and to catch up on the ones I only knew from movies, like his autobiographica, final novel, The Reviers.

I also didn't know that the 23-26 yr old Faulkner ran the Ole Miss campus postoffice very incompetentl (because he spent most days shut in his office writing), and you have to wonder if his fellow Missisippian Eudora Welty might not have had an inside joke in mind when she wrote "Why I live at the PO."

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Last minute holiday book reviews

The Guardian newspaper just released a list by English editors and agents of some of the best unread books of the last decade.

It is full of interesting suggestions -- fiction and memoirs -- by American and British writers. A real treat for the avid reader who doesn't just want to read what everyone else is reading.

Check it out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/16/decade-best-unread-books

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Incredible Afghanistan battlefield photos

This photo essay posted on the Denver Post Blog provides incredible insight into the harsh conditions under which Marines fight the Taliban. Pictures were taken by AP photographer David Guttenfleder over several years. He returned to the US this July.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/10/30/photographer-collection-david-guttenfelder-in-afghanistan/