Greetings, fellow readers! I'm taking a break from the midterm crunch to share my one of my nerdy guilty pleasures with you: my obsession with typography. If you're the kind of person who has ever cringed over a paper typed in Comic Sans or debated the benefits of serif versus sans-serif fonts, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, welcome to my world!
Typography has a long and fascinating history. I've been learning a lot about it in my Internet Literature class. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit I've come across is the story of Aldus Manutius, a 15th century Italian printer and humanist whose accomplishments include inventing italic type, standardizing the modern appearance and use of commas and semicolons, and creating the first paperback books. Together with his friend Francesco Griffo, Manutius created at least five different typefaces which are still used today.
I even found this little "What typeface are you?" quiz the other day. I got Garamond, so naturally I did some digging into the history of the font. It is named after Claude Garamont, a Belgian printer who became prominent in the 1540's after the French king Francis I commissioned him to create a Greek typeface. I learned that Garamond is considered one of the most legible and eco-friendly (in terms of efficient ink usage) of all typefaces used in print applications. Also, the Hunger Games trilogy, the Dr. Seuss stories, and the American editions of the Harry Potter series are all set in different variations of Garamond.
Dave Eggers, editor of the beloved journal McSweeney's, stated that one of his goals was to use only the font Garamond 3 in the journal "because it looked good in so many permutations—italics, small caps, all caps, tracked out, justified or not." Maybe I'll do the same and make Garamond the official font of all my writings and correspondence!
What's your type? Click on the link below to take the quiz, and let me know in the comments what you learn about your font!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/what-font-are-you
Until next time,
Anna
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Latin, Squares, and Other Things
Greetings, fellow readers! Lemony Snicket once said, "February is the shortest month of the year, so if you are having a miserable month, try to schedule it for February." As much as I revere the esteemed Mr. Snicket, I have to disagree. February is the month of my birthday; therefore, how could it be anything but a time of joyous celebration and revelry? But that's not for another two weeks, alas.
Today is Allison's birthday instead; we celebrated with presents and pizza. We also worked on a Catullus poem Allison is translating for her Latin reading group. She did the translating, I organized the rhyme and meter. English major school is good for some things, you know!
Translating the poem was a lot of fun; it's challenging trying to figure out how to write good poetry in English while staying true to the original Latin. It's something I've always wanted to try. Who knows, maybe someday we'll give the entire Catullan corpus a shot!
Speaking of challenging, this was also a good week for the budding computer scientist in me. Inspired by a class demonstration of objects (this refers to the massive storehouses of information which make Java so powerful and efficient), I created a program to draw Albers squares. These were pioneered by Josef Albers, a designer and artist who used them to illustrate his scientific study of color.
Today is Allison's birthday instead; we celebrated with presents and pizza. We also worked on a Catullus poem Allison is translating for her Latin reading group. She did the translating, I organized the rhyme and meter. English major school is good for some things, you know!
Translating the poem was a lot of fun; it's challenging trying to figure out how to write good poetry in English while staying true to the original Latin. It's something I've always wanted to try. Who knows, maybe someday we'll give the entire Catullan corpus a shot!
Speaking of challenging, this was also a good week for the budding computer scientist in me. Inspired by a class demonstration of objects (this refers to the massive storehouses of information which make Java so powerful and efficient), I created a program to draw Albers squares. These were pioneered by Josef Albers, a designer and artist who used them to illustrate his scientific study of color.
 |
| "There is no difference between science and art when it comes to creativeness, productiveness, to come to conclusions and formulations."--Josef Albers
The gist of the program is this: computers create colors by interpreting sets of RGB values, numbers between 0 and 255. This stands for "red, green, blue" and indicates what proportion of these colors needs to mix to create a new color. For example, red is 255 0 0: all red, no green, and no blue. You can get really fancy and make colors like Orchid (218 112 214) and Spring Green (0 255 127), but in the end, it all comes down to mixing red, green, and blue.
My program allows you to input the RGB values for up to three colors--a total of nine numbers separated by spaces. Then, it draws two Albers squares using the colors you've chosen.
This was a really fun project to work on, and an important milestone for me. I'm beginning to realize how much I can do with just some basic knowledge of computer programming. Our next class project is to write a program that draws fractal art, a challenge much more complicated than simply making squares. Stay tuned for my thoughts about that one!
Today was a good day for my school reading as well. I'm writing an essay on "Night the Fourth" of The Four Zoas, a truly bizarre work by Romantic poet William Blake. I'm not the biggest fan of Blake--he's a little too obtuse and mystical for me--but he certainly does demand that you pay attention when you read his poems.
I've also been writing another blog for my Internet Literature class; it's not finished yet, but I'll post the link when I'm done. It's very different from this one, focusing instead more on art and my own aesthetic sensibility. It, too, is an interesting project to work on.
Not much reading for fun lately, though I did manage to get through The Emperor of All Maladies, which was excellent. I highly recommend it. It doesn't look like I'll have much chance to pursue reading of my own between now and spring break, but I'll keep you posted.
Until next time,
Anna
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Saturday, February 1, 2014
Learning to Read, Part Two
In my last post, I focused mainly on the kind of reading I do for my English classes: close readings of literary texts. However, that's not the only kind of reading I've had to do in college.
Sometimes, we're required to read in another language, one that is unfamiliar to us. In that case, we need to be particularly attentive to detail. I've learned a lot about this from my roommate, Allison, who is a Classics major. She takes several Latin translation classes each semester, and through her, I've learned a lot about what it means to read in another language. For example, there are over 42 distinct words for kill in Latin. Latin is full of elaborate grammatical constructs and metaphors, some of which we don't understand because we're not reading from the context of ancient Roman culture, Allison says. Even so, it astounds me not only that these texts have survived for so long, but also that we can understand them at all. All these stories and thoughts would be lost to us without people like Allison who have dedicated themselves to reading and understanding a language different from their own.
I have delved into learning a new language of my own this semester: the computer programming language Java. Unlike natural languages, such as English, German, and Japanese, programming languages are formal. This means that the computer relies on a strict syntactical code for reading and interpreting the programs I've written. Computers take things very literally, which means I have to be extremely careful with my syntax, which is like the grammar and punctuation of programming languages.
A human being can understand this message, even though it's not grammatically correct:
i luv 2 eat ice cream its gr8
If, however, I were to type something with similar syntactical errors into a computer program, I'd be inundated with error messages. I'd have to enter something more formal:
I love to eat ice cream. It's great.
See what I mean? Programming can be frustrating at times, but the more I practice, the more I learn how to write the way a computer thinks. It's not so different from the close reading I do for my English classes. In both cases, reading is an interpretive act. It broadens my point of view and helps me think of new ways to solve problems. Not to mention you can do some pretty awesome things with computer programs: for my class, I made a point-and-click adventure game and wrote two programs that encrypt messages using a secret code. I'm excited to see what other adventures are in store.
Sometimes, we're required to read in another language, one that is unfamiliar to us. In that case, we need to be particularly attentive to detail. I've learned a lot about this from my roommate, Allison, who is a Classics major. She takes several Latin translation classes each semester, and through her, I've learned a lot about what it means to read in another language. For example, there are over 42 distinct words for kill in Latin. Latin is full of elaborate grammatical constructs and metaphors, some of which we don't understand because we're not reading from the context of ancient Roman culture, Allison says. Even so, it astounds me not only that these texts have survived for so long, but also that we can understand them at all. All these stories and thoughts would be lost to us without people like Allison who have dedicated themselves to reading and understanding a language different from their own.
I have delved into learning a new language of my own this semester: the computer programming language Java. Unlike natural languages, such as English, German, and Japanese, programming languages are formal. This means that the computer relies on a strict syntactical code for reading and interpreting the programs I've written. Computers take things very literally, which means I have to be extremely careful with my syntax, which is like the grammar and punctuation of programming languages.
A human being can understand this message, even though it's not grammatically correct:
i luv 2 eat ice cream its gr8
If, however, I were to type something with similar syntactical errors into a computer program, I'd be inundated with error messages. I'd have to enter something more formal:
I love to eat ice cream. It's great.
See what I mean? Programming can be frustrating at times, but the more I practice, the more I learn how to write the way a computer thinks. It's not so different from the close reading I do for my English classes. In both cases, reading is an interpretive act. It broadens my point of view and helps me think of new ways to solve problems. Not to mention you can do some pretty awesome things with computer programs: for my class, I made a point-and-click adventure game and wrote two programs that encrypt messages using a secret code. I'm excited to see what other adventures are in store.
Learning to Read
The longer I'm in college, the more I'm convinced the ultimate aim of education is learning how to read properly. I'm not just talking about your basic literacy here; if all we needed to know was basic phonics and spelling, we'd be done with school in second or third grade. College takes reading to a whole new level and challenges you to rethink what you know about reading.
Let's start with an obvious example: my English classes. One of the biggest perks (and pitfalls) of being an English major is that I have to read--all the time. Even when the material is difficult or obscure, even when I'm tired, even when I've read the same ten lines of poetry so many times the words are starting to blur together on the page. The most important thing I've learned as an English major is how to read closely, to look past the surface of the words and try to get inside the mind of the author. Close reading allows me to analyze the author's arguments, look for flaws in the author's logic, and appreciate the author's use of language.
They say good readers make good writers, and all this close reading practice has definitely made me better at writing. I use the same techniques when I'm revising and editing my papers as I do when I'm reading for my classes on Kafka and Romantic poetry. Close reading has made me more attuned to my own use of language, and it has definitely increased the efficacy of my writing. In Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a book I'm reading for my Internet Literature class, Italo Calvino says that one of the essential qualities of good literature is exactitude. He says that writers should be precise in their use of language and grammar. Poets should choose their words with care so as to achieve maximum affect with the least amount of words.
This piece of advice reminds me of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish poet I discovered through my good friend Sasha. Szymborska's use of language is masterful, each phrase evoking a distinct mental image that stays with me long after I've closed her poetry book. I've included one of my favorite poems in this post--as an actor and Shakespearean, it resonates with me in a special way. I hope you enjoy it.
Wisława Szymborska - Theatre Impressions (from Could Have, translated from the original Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)
For me the tragedy's most important act is the sixth:
the raising of the dead from the stage's battlegrounds
the straightening of wigs and fancy gowns
removing knives from stricken breasts,
taking nooses from lifeless necks,
lining up among the living
to face the audience.
The bows, both solo and ensemble -
the pale hand on the wounded heart,
the curtseys of the hapless suicide,
the bobbing of the chopped-off head.
The bows in pairs -
rage extends its arm to meekness,
the victim's eyes smile at the torturer,
the rebel indulgently walks besides the tyrant.
Eternity trampled by the golden slipper's toe.
Redeeming values swept aside with the swish of a wide-brimmed hat.
The unrepentant urge to start all over tomorrow.
Now enter, single file, the hosts who died early on,
in Acts 3 and 4, or between scenes.
The miraculous return of all those lost without a trace.
The thought that they've been waiting patiently offstage
without taking off their makeup
or their costumes
moves me more than all the tragedy's tirades.
But the curtain's fall is the most uplifting part,
the things you see before it hits the floor:
here one hand quickly reaches for a flower,
there another hand picks up a fallen sword.
Only then one last, unseen hand
does its duty
and grabs me by the throat.
Let's start with an obvious example: my English classes. One of the biggest perks (and pitfalls) of being an English major is that I have to read--all the time. Even when the material is difficult or obscure, even when I'm tired, even when I've read the same ten lines of poetry so many times the words are starting to blur together on the page. The most important thing I've learned as an English major is how to read closely, to look past the surface of the words and try to get inside the mind of the author. Close reading allows me to analyze the author's arguments, look for flaws in the author's logic, and appreciate the author's use of language.
They say good readers make good writers, and all this close reading practice has definitely made me better at writing. I use the same techniques when I'm revising and editing my papers as I do when I'm reading for my classes on Kafka and Romantic poetry. Close reading has made me more attuned to my own use of language, and it has definitely increased the efficacy of my writing. In Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a book I'm reading for my Internet Literature class, Italo Calvino says that one of the essential qualities of good literature is exactitude. He says that writers should be precise in their use of language and grammar. Poets should choose their words with care so as to achieve maximum affect with the least amount of words.
This piece of advice reminds me of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish poet I discovered through my good friend Sasha. Szymborska's use of language is masterful, each phrase evoking a distinct mental image that stays with me long after I've closed her poetry book. I've included one of my favorite poems in this post--as an actor and Shakespearean, it resonates with me in a special way. I hope you enjoy it.
Wisława Szymborska - Theatre Impressions (from Could Have, translated from the original Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)
For me the tragedy's most important act is the sixth:
the raising of the dead from the stage's battlegrounds
the straightening of wigs and fancy gowns
removing knives from stricken breasts,
taking nooses from lifeless necks,
lining up among the living
to face the audience.
The bows, both solo and ensemble -
the pale hand on the wounded heart,
the curtseys of the hapless suicide,
the bobbing of the chopped-off head.
The bows in pairs -
rage extends its arm to meekness,
the victim's eyes smile at the torturer,
the rebel indulgently walks besides the tyrant.
Eternity trampled by the golden slipper's toe.
Redeeming values swept aside with the swish of a wide-brimmed hat.
The unrepentant urge to start all over tomorrow.
Now enter, single file, the hosts who died early on,
in Acts 3 and 4, or between scenes.
The miraculous return of all those lost without a trace.
The thought that they've been waiting patiently offstage
without taking off their makeup
or their costumes
moves me more than all the tragedy's tirades.
But the curtain's fall is the most uplifting part,
the things you see before it hits the floor:
here one hand quickly reaches for a flower,
there another hand picks up a fallen sword.
Only then one last, unseen hand
does its duty
and grabs me by the throat.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
New Year, New Leaf
Greetings, readers! Hope you all enjoyed your holidays and are staying toasty warm; I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that it's as cold in London as it is here in Gainesville. Brrrrr!
Anyway, this post is cause for celebration: I fulfilled my new year's resolution of writing a blog! *Insert sounds of joyous delight* Alas, I made it only halfway through Les Mis, though I discovered many other great books along the way. For those of you who may be worrying this is the end, fear not: I have decided to continue the blog, and I'm looking forward to sharing all of 2014's good reads with you.
This Christmas marked an important milestone in my shelf life: my parents gave me a Kindle for the holiday!! Some of you may know my, ahem, colorful anti-Kindle history--at my most extreme, I composed a St. Crispin's Day-worthy speech to convince my friend Jason not to buy one of his own--but I have been converted and am now happily reading books on a screen which is more like a book than I expected. The Paperwhite has lots of great features, like a hypertextual dictionary (you hold your finger on a word and release to find the definition) and X-Ray, which allows you to track characters' appearances throughout the book. It comes in handy when reading the mammoth Game of Thrones series (who has time to memorize the minor vassals of House Tully, anyway?)
Currently, I am reading The Emperor of All Maladies (a biography of cancer), The Disappearing Spoon (a tour of the periodic table you think you learned about in chemistry class but actually didn't), and The Wilder Life (a memoir of the author's own relationship with the Little House on the Prairie series, from childhood on up.) I'm also reviewing a book about a student's journey through the Amazon rain forest for my school's Common Reading Program--more details on that to follow.
A lot of nonfiction, I know--maybe you guys can help me out and recommend some good stories for when my brain needs a break from reading about experimental leukemia treatments of the 1940's?
My classes this semester will include a lot of reading, as usual, this time from sources as diverse as the Romantic poets, the internet, and Franz Kafka. It's going to be a doozy, but I think I'll have fun.
That's all I have time for now; take it easy, and enjoy Florida's own version of an Arctic winter!
Until next time,
Anna
Anyway, this post is cause for celebration: I fulfilled my new year's resolution of writing a blog! *Insert sounds of joyous delight* Alas, I made it only halfway through Les Mis, though I discovered many other great books along the way. For those of you who may be worrying this is the end, fear not: I have decided to continue the blog, and I'm looking forward to sharing all of 2014's good reads with you.
This Christmas marked an important milestone in my shelf life: my parents gave me a Kindle for the holiday!! Some of you may know my, ahem, colorful anti-Kindle history--at my most extreme, I composed a St. Crispin's Day-worthy speech to convince my friend Jason not to buy one of his own--but I have been converted and am now happily reading books on a screen which is more like a book than I expected. The Paperwhite has lots of great features, like a hypertextual dictionary (you hold your finger on a word and release to find the definition) and X-Ray, which allows you to track characters' appearances throughout the book. It comes in handy when reading the mammoth Game of Thrones series (who has time to memorize the minor vassals of House Tully, anyway?)
Currently, I am reading The Emperor of All Maladies (a biography of cancer), The Disappearing Spoon (a tour of the periodic table you think you learned about in chemistry class but actually didn't), and The Wilder Life (a memoir of the author's own relationship with the Little House on the Prairie series, from childhood on up.) I'm also reviewing a book about a student's journey through the Amazon rain forest for my school's Common Reading Program--more details on that to follow.
A lot of nonfiction, I know--maybe you guys can help me out and recommend some good stories for when my brain needs a break from reading about experimental leukemia treatments of the 1940's?
My classes this semester will include a lot of reading, as usual, this time from sources as diverse as the Romantic poets, the internet, and Franz Kafka. It's going to be a doozy, but I think I'll have fun.
That's all I have time for now; take it easy, and enjoy Florida's own version of an Arctic winter!
Until next time,
Anna
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
War & Peace, Whale Hunting, and Other Endurance Sports
Greetings, fellow readers! I am back after a brief hiatus from life: those of you who read my blog regularly will remember that I last wrote while ill with a sore throat. Apparently, I had some kind of chest cold virus which not only made it difficult to breathe, but also spread to my eyes, rendering them swollen, red, and alas, unable to read. This germ knocked me out of commission for about five days; today is my first full day back in the land of the living. I wish I could say my illness represented some kind of literary journey to the underworld and back, or that my temporary eye trouble drew my attention to my own metaphorical blindness; however, my life is not a book, so my sickness lacks any poetic significance.
As fellow book-lovers, I'm sure you've all thought about what reading you'd do if you were ill, not so ill as to be in any real danger, but ill enough that you'd have to stay in bed for an extended period of time. I once read a customer review on Audible written by a woman who was prescribed bed rest after having surgery. She chose to utilize her time by reading War and Peace as an audio book, though I can't help but wonder whether it was a good idea for her to mix Tolstoy with Percocet--from what I've heard of his writing, it demands full lucidity.
Anyway, it got me thinking about those books we approach as textual Mount Everests, the extreme sports of the literary arena. There are the classic tomes that everyone talks about but few have read, such as Moby Dick and War and Peace, but there are other, slimmer volumes which look deceptively simple, yet are about as tricky as navigating through quicksand in the Fire Swamp. I came across a list of "50 Incredibly Tough Books for Extreme Readers" and was surprised to learn that I had read more than I thought. Four out of fifty is not bad; others of these are on my "To Read" list. I'll post some short blurbs of the books I have read, then copy the link below so you can see how many you've read.
First is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I tried reading this book on my own and gave up halfway through, but returned to it as required reading for my Science and Literature class last spring. I ended up reading it multiple times for our class discussion; it's definitely a book which rewards re-reading. With this one, I found it helped to talk through the text in class. It made it much easier to keep track of the stream of consciousness narration, and reading the book in an academic setting allowed us to analyze the themes in more depth than I would have done on my own.
Conclusion: unless you have a Mrs. Ramsay to guide your vision, you won't make it to the lighthouse with James and Cam.
Next is Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I know of only two other people who have read this book, which may surprise you when you see how short it is. This one is tough not in the sense that it is difficult to read, but in that it's a highly disturbing story. This book has haunted me ever since I read it as a junior in high school. My history professor mentioned it casually in class, and I thought it would be easy to get through in an afternoon. I was wrong--I am still working through this book and thinking about the weighty questions of war, ethics, and suicide it poses.
Conclusion: getting through it is not hard, but unless you have some way to communicate your experience of reading this book, you may be trapped in the same despair as the main character.
Then there's Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I know a lot of people who dislike this book. I love it, and, ironically, didn't find it difficult to read. It's a critique of imperialism written as densely as the jungles of Belgium's African colonies and a classic modernist text that inspired the 1979 movie "Apocalypse Now." I read it while on my way to a funeral several hours from my home, and I couldn't put it down. I think everyone should read this book.
Conclusion: if the malaria doesn't get to you, the spiritual malaise will. You have been warned of the horror ahead.
Finally, there's The Castle, by Franz Kafka. I also read this book for my Science and Literature class, and for a time, it held the dubious honor of being my Most Hated Book. Kafka left off writing it halfway through the last sentence, for crying out loud! I was infuriated that he couldn't be bothered to finish the book, and I found the villagers' provincial and bureaucratic customs annoying in the extreme. However, after reading the book multiple times for discussion and sharing some very interesting thoughts on the castle itself as a singularity (yes, we're talking black holes now), the book grew on me. Now I'm taking a Kafka seminar in the spring--Kafka would be so proud.
Conclusion: as Kafka himself said, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us. Once you accept this, you can laugh and get on with the rest of the book.
Now I'm interested to know which of these extreme books you've read and what you thought of them. Let me know in the comments! My money is on Ed Turner, fellow bibliophile and blogger, to have read the most of those on the list.
50 Extreme Books
As fellow book-lovers, I'm sure you've all thought about what reading you'd do if you were ill, not so ill as to be in any real danger, but ill enough that you'd have to stay in bed for an extended period of time. I once read a customer review on Audible written by a woman who was prescribed bed rest after having surgery. She chose to utilize her time by reading War and Peace as an audio book, though I can't help but wonder whether it was a good idea for her to mix Tolstoy with Percocet--from what I've heard of his writing, it demands full lucidity.
Anyway, it got me thinking about those books we approach as textual Mount Everests, the extreme sports of the literary arena. There are the classic tomes that everyone talks about but few have read, such as Moby Dick and War and Peace, but there are other, slimmer volumes which look deceptively simple, yet are about as tricky as navigating through quicksand in the Fire Swamp. I came across a list of "50 Incredibly Tough Books for Extreme Readers" and was surprised to learn that I had read more than I thought. Four out of fifty is not bad; others of these are on my "To Read" list. I'll post some short blurbs of the books I have read, then copy the link below so you can see how many you've read.
First is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I tried reading this book on my own and gave up halfway through, but returned to it as required reading for my Science and Literature class last spring. I ended up reading it multiple times for our class discussion; it's definitely a book which rewards re-reading. With this one, I found it helped to talk through the text in class. It made it much easier to keep track of the stream of consciousness narration, and reading the book in an academic setting allowed us to analyze the themes in more depth than I would have done on my own.
Conclusion: unless you have a Mrs. Ramsay to guide your vision, you won't make it to the lighthouse with James and Cam.
Next is Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I know of only two other people who have read this book, which may surprise you when you see how short it is. This one is tough not in the sense that it is difficult to read, but in that it's a highly disturbing story. This book has haunted me ever since I read it as a junior in high school. My history professor mentioned it casually in class, and I thought it would be easy to get through in an afternoon. I was wrong--I am still working through this book and thinking about the weighty questions of war, ethics, and suicide it poses.
Conclusion: getting through it is not hard, but unless you have some way to communicate your experience of reading this book, you may be trapped in the same despair as the main character.
Then there's Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I know a lot of people who dislike this book. I love it, and, ironically, didn't find it difficult to read. It's a critique of imperialism written as densely as the jungles of Belgium's African colonies and a classic modernist text that inspired the 1979 movie "Apocalypse Now." I read it while on my way to a funeral several hours from my home, and I couldn't put it down. I think everyone should read this book.
Conclusion: if the malaria doesn't get to you, the spiritual malaise will. You have been warned of the horror ahead.
Finally, there's The Castle, by Franz Kafka. I also read this book for my Science and Literature class, and for a time, it held the dubious honor of being my Most Hated Book. Kafka left off writing it halfway through the last sentence, for crying out loud! I was infuriated that he couldn't be bothered to finish the book, and I found the villagers' provincial and bureaucratic customs annoying in the extreme. However, after reading the book multiple times for discussion and sharing some very interesting thoughts on the castle itself as a singularity (yes, we're talking black holes now), the book grew on me. Now I'm taking a Kafka seminar in the spring--Kafka would be so proud.
Conclusion: as Kafka himself said, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us. Once you accept this, you can laugh and get on with the rest of the book.
Now I'm interested to know which of these extreme books you've read and what you thought of them. Let me know in the comments! My money is on Ed Turner, fellow bibliophile and blogger, to have read the most of those on the list.
50 Extreme Books
Friday, November 1, 2013
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