Here are a few of my favorites:

Nature Is What We See
From Blank to Blank
Long Famous Sleep
We Grow Accustomed To The Dark
Because that you are Going

So what do you want me to comment upon: the cognitive originality of E.D. or the bridging of Witt's border between language and actuality?

Do you have a reference for that quote of Bloom on E.D.?

Actually - those are cavernous claims too large for my blog.
I might nibble at the sides of the issue but I am staying well clear of the earlier works of Witten - I am not reliving my 2nd year philosophy courses....thanks.

But I am interested in interrogating the notion of cognitive originality in some of those Dickinson poems. I have had some thoughts on deconstructing her ontology and structural elements of Dickinsonian form. Let me ruminate on them for awhile though...as I am walking my way through Virginia Woolf's A Room of Her Own..

Agapeagape, that is my favorite line from blood meridian. How do you interpret it? Both in the context of the book and standalone, if different.

Very hard to explain, I think. I take it literally and I think literally it depicts with its own kind of logic the human condition. It makes me think of wide-eyed children gazing at the stars, anticipating something cosmically magical, never to realize that there is no such joy in death as there is upon the road thereto. It's a very clever way to suggest secular appreciation, isn't it? Of course I think its power probably derives primarily from the fact that I believe literally in what it says, that the experience of a bar will always be meretricious in relation to what could be accomplished in sobriety. The word joy helps to clarify that meaning and the sentence wouldn't work without it. It's hard to associate a time in the pub with joyousness.

This is a bad post but i'm not going to edit it

I take it as the journey is (almost usually) better than the destination. Simple illustration - the planning, talking about, and flight to vegas among friends is usually actually more fun than the time you spend there. Or a car ride in anticipation of a time to be had is better than what actually happens once you are there.

In regard to the Mennonite who says it, I think he's telling them that the idea of going to Mexico/adventuring is better than actually doing it.

Loving this book right now:

http://www.ucobserver.org/culture/2014/02/original_sin/

Finished LA Confidential, You need a program to keep track of the players. I remember seeing the movie years ago and loving it, but it was not as in depth as Ellroy wrote with all the plot lines.

On to Black Dahlia. Read about her in Max Allen Collins book Angel in Black. The story interests me as she was from around where I am from, Medfa, MA and all the speculation about what happened and never solved.

Digger, I should have sourced those, but I can't be bothered to now, I think I googled "emily dickinson cognitive power bloom" will bring them up if you're interested.

I encourage you to finish the blog, and I'll be pleased to read it. You should add "Mao II" by Don DeLillo to your list. I would love to talk/hear about about this book.

Just finished Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and it has changed my conception of what a novel can do. I wish I had time to flip back to page one and spend more time with it.

Robert Crais, free fall

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using 2+2 Forums

I read his first two and hope to get to this sometime in the next few months. Right now I'm 100 pages into Philipp Meyer's The Son, which is great -- and seems like it would make an interesting complement to The Orenda.

Goodreads goal of 52 books in 2014 (probably not all that ambitious to many of you but I have an 80 hr/week job), off to a pretty good start so far:

Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
We by Yevgeniy Zamatin
The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osbourne
Plugged by Eoin Colfer
The Execution of Noa P Singleton by Elizabeth Silver
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (in progress)

I think my favorite surprisingly was The Execution which was intense and page-turning. I've enjoyed pretty much all of them so far. My only criticism of We is that it slightly decreased my love for 1984 since they are very similar, We was written 20 years earlier, and I think its very likely that Orwell stole some of the ideas and themes. Have enjoyed every single one, and has been a pretty diverse group of books so far.

I will take that on board - maybe I should have chosen that instead of the quasi- non fiction essay A Room of One's Own. Can you be more specific about what you thought was brilliant about the text?

Yeah - I got onto a criticism connecting Dickinson to a Platonic ontology which is hiiiiiiiiighly problematic for me. I am going to do a reading of one of your shorter Dickinson recommendations as a vehicle for commenting upon the 19th conception of the poetic imagination. Hopefully it will be coherent.

Just googled this one. Was it as bad as the publisher's synopsis makes it sound?

"Lord Doyle", lol..

It was weird. The author is a travel journalist. The prose is nice, he writes in an elegant , sort of "pretty" way, but the story itself was unimpressive. At heart it's sort of your typical gambling addict who can't quit story, which has been done much better many times. Wouldn't really recommend it, I gave two stars on goodreads but I won it as an advance copy for free.

In that case, I guess I'll skip it and finally get around to Dostoyevsky.

Weird: Try starting with Crime and Punishment for D, the visual imagery of St Petersburg alone will make it worth it.

Crime and Punishment is an amazing book, one of the few I can honestly say changed me as a person

Finished Ham on Rye; started Hollywood.

Hey all. I'm new to the thread and I'm looking for some good fantasy series to blow time on. Even more bonus points if there is a good audiobook to go with it. I also wouldn't mind dipping my toes into some more serious "literary" fiction or whatever you want to call your snooty books The Count of Monte Cristo seems like a good first step since it's been recently mentioned.

Here are a few things I've read these last 2 years. Has anyone else enjoyed these books? I've had almost 0 discussion about any of them with anyone and I am dying for some interaction! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The Kingkiller Chronicle (Parts 1 and 2 of 3) by Patrick Rothfuss - I am very impressed with this series so far and it was very refreshing from the huge amount of fantasy books I've read recently. Very solid heroic fantasy about a young traveling entertainer turned exceptional student at the magic university. It was very well paced for me (except a few chapters in Book 2) and I loved Kvothe's shenanigans and charisma from stage training to get out of tough spots.

The Lies of Locke Lamora (and books 2,3,4 of The Gentleman Basterd Series) by Scott Lynch - A young boy is trained by the local Thief Maker, but causes too many problems and is sold to a priest of the Crooked Warden. The priest trains a small team of children to pull confidence tricks on nobles and other rich targets. This series goes a few different places and I can't so too much without spoiling the earlier books, but I enjoyed it.

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie - The story was a bit lackluster and the ending was lame, but the characterization was excellent. Logan "Bloody Nine" Ninefingers is now one of my favorite characters and I did a total 180 on Glokta and really enjoyed his chapters. Jezal was extremely fun to hate on throughout the series.

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - It was refreshing to have a female main character in a heroic fantasy (even though I definitely prefer male leads). The "magic" system was very innovative and fun to read about. The battle scenes felt a little hectic and hard to follow because of these powers, but interesting and I enjoyed the different ways they are used.

I'm currently reading Codex Alera by Jim Butcher because I really like The Dresden Files, but I am not enjoying it. I'm only the 5th book or so, but I've wanted to quit reading since book 2. The main character isn't super exciting (he's finally coming into his own, which is why I keep reading, but he's still kinda lame). The overall storyline doesn't really interest me and the Fury's are very well explained nor that exciting.

The Wheel of Time - I've just recently listened to the first 3 books, but I haven't been impressed. I put them aside for a while because I don't find the characters that interesting and the story is extremely generic and I feel like nothing going to happen unless I just skip to book 8 or so. I've been told I have to read at least the first 6 books, so maybe I'll come back to it.

The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb - I have only got through book 1 and part of 2 of this, but I've enjoyed it so far. I'm going to hold off on my opinions since I'm still early in the series, but even though it's enjoyable; I don't think I will remember much about it after a few years. The earlier mentioned books have just been more entertaining with better characters.

I've read Game of Thrones a few years ago and Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings when I was younger, but not much else.

Just about to start The Pearl John Steinbeck.

+1.