Clipmarks | jklugman's books collection

Daughter of Eve by Christina Rossetti

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:10:33 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:--
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

A Daughter Of Eve

by Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830-1894)

Tags: christina rossetti

Book lifts (coffin) lid on star of eerie first Dracula film

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:09:54 GMT

clipped by: CarnivalBorn

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

The first screen portrayal of Dracula was so eerie, some critics asked whether the actor himself could be a vampire. But since his death, little has been done to resurrect Max Schreck's reputation -- until now

The rest of his career has been largely forgotten -- unjustly, in the view of German author Stefan Eickhoff, who has written what he says is the first biography of Schreck

Eickhoff's biography provides a detailed chronicle of the career of Schreck, a civil servant's son who appeared in around 800 stage and screen roles

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

The most revealing descriptions of the Berliner come from tributes paid to Schreck after he died suddenly in 1936

Contemporaries remembered Schreck, who was married but had no children, as a loyal, conscientious loner with an offbeat sense of humor and a talent for playing the grotesque

One recalled how he lived in "a remote and strange world" and would spend hours walking through dense, dark forests

Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:05:41 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: A book by sociologist Mark Regnerus looks at how religion affects teens sexual behaviors. It looks like his results are very counter-intuitive--religious teens are just as sexually active as non-religious ones.

Hat tip to Hugo Schwyzer.

Clip Source: www.amazon.com

Forbidden Fruit tells the definitive story of the sexual values and practices of American teenagers, paying particular attention to how participating in organized religion shapes sexual decision-making. Merging analyses of three national surveys with stories drawn from interviews with over 250 teenagers across America,

Religion can and does matter, Regnerus finds, but religious claims are often swamped by other compelling sexual scripts.

And strikingly, evangelical teens aren't less sexually active than their non-evangelical counterparts, they just tend to feel guiltier about it. In fact, Regnerus finds that few religious teens have internalized or are even able to articulate the sexual ethic taught by their denominations. The only-and largely ineffective-sexual message most religious teens are getting is, "Don't do it until you're married." Ultimately, Regnerus concludes, religion may influence adolescent sexual behavior, but it rarely motivates sexual decision making.

Tags: religion, sex, sociology, research

Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, & the Nazi Welfare State

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:28:19 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via Mark Thoma at Economist's View

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

February 18, 2007

Handouts From Hitler

By DAGMAR HERZOG

The provocative power of Götz Aly’s “Hitler’s Beneficiaries,” available in this fine English translation after having created a fierce debate in Germany, is that it seeks to move beyond each of these explanations. That it is not wholly successful does not diminish its intellectual significance as a fresh model for grasping how the Nazis gained such broad support from so many Germans for as long as they did.

In Aly’s view, Nazism secured the compliance of the German people not because of Hitler’s charisma or Goebbels’s propaganda, nor because of its anti-Semitic policies or the Gestapo’s ruthlessness. A majority of Germans were not seduced or scared by the Nazis. On the contrary, their loyalty to the regime was bought and paid for — quite literally so.

According to Aly, who teaches at the University of Frankfurt, millions of care packages of plundered items were sent back home from the occupied territories by Wehrmacht soldiers who were themselves given hearty rations and plenty of disposable cash. Clothing and household objects that had once belonged to Jews were sold at affordable prices at government-organized public auctions, or simply handed out free as emergency relief. And the Nazis also introduced a progressive income tax that shifted a far greater tax burden onto corporations and the very rich.

“Hitler’s Beneficiaries” argues that nothing more than an unremarkable pursuit of self-interest led most Germans to pledge allegiance to the Nazi regime. Germans wanted their children to have nice Christmas gifts. They wanted to set aside money for retirement. They wanted to send a special someone back home a pretty sweater from Holland or perfumed soap from France. Citizens were sated with decent wages, generous overtime pay and innovative pension plans — that is, through the establishment of a complex, if absolutely amoral, welfare state.

Tags: nazis, history, germany, books, via: mark thoma

Shakespeare is 1/20th the writer Tom Clancy is

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 05:17:18 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Why Read Shakespeare When Clancy Can Get You a Pizza Party?

By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 29, 2007; B01

Montgomery County parent Brad German likes just about anything that encourages kids to read. But he can't understand why a reading program used in his child's North Bethesda Middle School awards a student more points for reading a Nancy Drew mystery than William Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

Accelerated Reader, by Renaissance Learning Inc., the largest supplemental reading program in the United States, is used in nearly 60,000 schools across the country. The company provides computer software that allows teachers to quiz kids on their comprehension of 100,000 books -- which students select themselves -- and assigns a readability formula that determines grade level and difficulty.

Under the formula, the complicated and violent "Macbeth" earns a reader four points, and the Nancy Drew mystery "The Picture of Guilt" is worth five points. Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" is worth 20 points; Tom Clancy's voluminous "Executive Orders," 78 points.

"Macbeth," the story of a man's lust for power, is given a book level of 10.9, meaning that it is understandable by 10th or 11th grade. Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Beloved," which depicts a mother choosing to kill her daughter rather than see her enslaved, is given a book level of 6.0, appropriate for sixth grade. It is worth 15 points.

Tags: education, humor, books, book

Donate books via Alibris.com

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:41:41 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: Alibris now has a feature (I don't know how long this has existed) allowing you to find wishlists posted by nonprofits, libraries, schools, and hospitals, and then to donate the relevant books. The featured wishlist at the moment is for groups affected by Katrina.

Clip Source: www.alibris.com

	Donate-A-Book Wishlists
	Just launched! Our new Donate-A-Book program aims to fill bookshelves across the United States. Deserving institutions—libraries, schools, nonprofits—are compiling wishlists of much-needed books. And generous donors (book lovers like you) are granting wishes for bountiful books and brighter minds. how to donate how to submit a wishlist

Send books to seniors

Meals (and books) on wheels. Brighten the lives of senior citizens by donating books to the "Elderlibraries" program.

view their wishlist

Help kids heal

Young readers in need. Donate books to the "Reach Out and Read" program, which helps ill children to get better with the help of books.

view their wishlist

Find a Donate-A-Book wishlist near you
Click a state, or browse all.

Invite groups to join us. Donate-A-Book is brand new, with a limited number of enrolled pilot schools and libraries. Please help organizations in your community: Ask them to create wishlists for the books your town needs. e-mail groups to enroll

Donate books to aid in
hurricane recovery

Groups like CHART at the University of New Orleans are still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. You can help them rebuild with a simple and lasting book donation via our Donate-A-Book program.

view their wishlist

Tags: charity, books, cool

Princeton bookstore succumbs to cultural shift

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:07:17 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: 10 years ago I lived in Chicago and loved the bookstores there. Now I live in a town with crappy chain and independent bookstores and have pretty much come to rely on Amazon and half.com for my book needs, and don't really see much of a need for them anymore.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

January 3, 2007

A Princeton Maverick Succumbs to a Cultural Shift

By JULIE BOSMAN

PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 29 — Logan Fox can’t quite pinpoint the moment when movies and television shows replaced books as the cultural topics people liked to talk about over dinner, at cocktail parties, at work. He does know that at Micawber Books, his 26-year-old independent bookstore here that is to close for good in March, his own employees prefer to come in every morning and gossip about “Survivor” or “that fashion reality show” whose title he can’t quite place.

Mr. Fox is bracing himself for an emotionally wrenching few months. In December Micawber announced that it would close, after years of fighting not only the tyranny of other media but also the steady encroachment of big-box retail competitors and the Internet.

Independent bookstores, of course, have been under siege for nearly two decades by the megachains and the Web retailers, and have been steadily dropping away, one by one. Now, though, the battle is reaching some of the last redoubts.

But beyond those factors, Mr. Fox said, he blames a change in American culture, in the quickening pace of people’s lives, in the shrinking willingness to linger. During the 1980s, in the store’s early days, customers would come in and stay all afternoon, carefully inspecting the books that were packed tightly together, spine to spine.

Independent bookstores across the country are suffocating, squeezed by Amazon.com and the chain bookstores that deliver deeper discounts and wider variety than independent shops. According to the American Booksellers Association, a trade group of independent bookstores, there are about 2,500 such stores in the United States, down from about 4,700 in 1993. And that is not counting those that sell only used books.

Tags: books, book, commerce

Recommendations for leftist sci-fi

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:50:22 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: ezraklein.typepad.com

December 19, 2006

We must fight the mediocre science-fiction authors on the beaches...

Now it occurs to me that I can't really think of any SF author as explicitly left as Robinson. There's plenty of goof SF that can be read as leftish, but I can't name another socialist off the top of my head. Any suggestions?

Tags: science fiction, scifi, sci-fi, entertainment, books, book, novels, politics

Fantasy epic series recommendations

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 04:34:08 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.librarything.com

Group:

FantasyFans

Topic

Epic series recommendations

0 / 46 read

Tags: books, book, fantasy

LibraryThing UnSuggester

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:16:05 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Did you like The Confessions of St. Augustine? If so, you will NOT like Sherrilyn Kenyon's Night Pleasures.

Clip Source: www.librarything.com

Did you like?

You will not like!

Tags: books, humor

Book Industry Split By Race

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:12:41 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: global.factiva.com

Dividing Lines: Why Book Industry Sees the World Split Still by Race --- In Many Stores, Black Authors Are Shelved Separately; Convenience or Disservice? --- Mr. Massey, an Invisible Man

By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

6 December 2006

The Wall Street Journal

Should fiction written by black authors be shelved in African-American departments, a move that often helps nurture writers? Or should it be presented alongside other categories, such as general literature, allowing books written by black authors to take their place in publishing's mainstream?

The issue -- stirring up a broader debate between assimilation and maintaining a distinct identity -- has come to the fore because of a recent explosion in black fiction at a time when book sales as a whole are in decline. For the first nine months of 2006, bookstore sales fell 1.6% to $12.1 billion, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, major New York publishers say black authors are flourishing. "It's a hot area, and everyone is rushing in," says Judith Curr, publisher of CBS Corp.'s Atria imprint, where African-American authors contribute about 25% of the titles published annually.

African-American sections are the rule at Borders and Waldenbooks, chains both owned by Borders Group Inc., as well as many airports and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlets. Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc., the country's largest book retailer, don't follow the practice. There, Mr. Massey's books, which include "Thunderland" and "Dark Corner," are found in the horror section or in general fiction.

Craig Werner, chairman of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attributes the current interest in black authors to an expanding black middle class that has both money and leisure time. "As every scholar of the novel has concluded, the novel is a middle-class genre," he says.

Tags: books, race

Review of Christopher Hitchens' bio of Thomas Paine

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 04:50:43 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Ouch. Barrell accuses Hitchens of mangling a lot of important facts about Paine, as well as borrowing heavily from another Paine biography.

Via Scott McLemee at Cliopatria

Clip Source: www.lrb.co.uk

The Positions He Takes

John Barrell

Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’: A Biography by Christopher Hitchens · Atlantic, 128 pp, £9.99

if any radical, misled by George Galloway’s description of Hitchens as ‘a drink-soaked former Trotskyite popinjay’, should suggest that this book was written out of vanity, he would surely be mistaken. A vain man would have taken care to write a better book than this: more original, more accurate, less damaging to his own estimation of himself, less somniferously inert. The press release accompanying the book led me to expect something much livelier; Hitchens, it exclaims, ‘marvels’ at the forethought of Rights of Man, and ‘revels’ in its contentiousness. There is a bit of marvelling and revelling here and there, but it is as routine as everything else in this book, which reads like the work of a tired man.

Tags: christopher hitchens, politics, thomas paine, history, books

Virginia Woolf and anti-semitism

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:32:32 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Philip Weiss responds to a article in Commentary that charges Virginia Woolf's husband, Leonard, of being a self-loathing Jew for marrying her.

Clip Source: mondoweiss.observer.com

Commentary Is Afraid of Virginia Woolf (and Intermarriage)

FILE UNDER: Politics, Culture, The Arts, The Assimilationist

Such sensitivity (I know, an anti-Semitic word; Hemingway used it) is unbefitting a proud race and religion. Yes Virginia Woolf obviously made anti-Semitic statements; but the dour judgment of her as a Jew-hater is overwrought and particularist. Can we take a joke? Has a Jew ever made a crack about gentiles? I guess not. A few years ago an editor at the New Republic said he wanted to "Jew me down" on a fee—a Jewish editor, of course. Can I write an article about him for Commentary?

The second response is that Gross grossly misreads Virginia Woolf's psyche, her artistry and her marriage. She was a deeply troubled person, and socially uncomfortable; she contained multitudes, and a need for expression; she made a lot of sharp comments about a lot of people. Hanging her up on the anti-Semitic ones, most of them trivial, is legalistic and pettifogging. Does intermarriage present cultural challenges, of mutual suspicion and prejudice? Absolutely. And people say stuff, and also work their way through stuff.

The Woolfs' was an artists' marriage, full of strains and freedoms, and evidently a successful one till Virginia's suicide. Leonard Woolf was motivated in part by a sense of service, the understanding that he was serving his wife and society by being a resolutely stable husband to a troubled genius. As for Virginia, does her marrying a Jew and deriving tremendous strength from that marriage, in a tortured life, amount to nothing?

Tags: anti-semitism, virginia woolf, books, literature, novels

Nazi Science Fiction

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:14:59 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Yuck.

Via Henry Farrell

Clip Source: www.amazon.com

Watch on the Rhine (Posleen War) (Mass Market Paperback)

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. An axiom of military science is that an army reflects the society it protects, but what happens when that society is confronted with a crisis its dominant ideology can't solve? In this provocative addition to the Posleen War series, a galactic civilization genetically predisposed toward pacifism offers humanity advanced technology so that we can defend ourselves (and them) from the only other sentient species capable of violence—think "Mongol horde in space." After the first enemy landings in 2004, the German chancellor decides, despite fierce opposition, to rejuvenate survivors of the Waffen SS. Eager to redeem their tarnished honor, these veterans display the same steadfastness and fortitude that they did in Russia and Normandy. Ringo (Hell's Faire) and Kratman (A State of Disobedience) pull no punches in this audacious and deliberately shocking effort, contrasting the ruthlessness of the (mostly) former Nazis with the contemporary politicians' disastrous insistence on forcing reality into a politically correct mold. Readers who can overcome their ideological gag reflex will be rewarded with an exciting view from "the other side of the hill." (Aug.)

Tags: nazism, history, science fiction, third reich, nazis, ss

Eric Ambler and the British Espionage Novel

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:00:28 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Eric Ambler is considered to be the grand doyen of spy novelists. As this essay points out, he didn't invent the genre, but he made a lasting impact on it.

I have been reading some of his novels lately (Dark Frontier and A Coffin for Dmitrios). For some reason I find them pretty slow going however. Still, this essay helps me appreciate his contribution

Clip Source: calitreview.com

Beyond the Balkans
Eric Ambler and the British Espionage Novel, 1936-1940

by
Brett F. Woods

Eric Ambler (1909-1998) was one of the foremost architects of espionage fiction as it exists today. Like his predecessor Somerset Maugham, Ambler sought to transform the genre from the verbal banality and minimal characterizations of authors William Le Queux and Edward Oppenheim to a more sophisticated, morally ambiguous world of deception and danger. Ambler also coursed the genre in another markedly different direction by moving away from the more conservative, pro-British, “King and Crown” intrigues of John Buchan to explore other, more complex political venues. As Ambler himself later said, “I looked around for something I could change and decided it was the thriller-espionage story. I decided to turn that upside down and make the heroes left wing and popular front figures.”¹ To this end he was extraordinarily successful. Between the years 1936 and 1940 Ambler wrote six classic political novels: The Dark Frontier (1936), Uncommon Danger (1937), Epitaph for a Spy (1938), Cause for Alarm (1938), The Mask of Dimitros (1939), and Journey Into Fear (1940).

Tags: eric ambler, books, book, novels, spy novels

Clipmarks | jklugman's books collection

Daughter of Eve by Christina Rossetti

Book lifts (coffin) lid on star of eerie first Dracula film

Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers

Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, & the Nazi Welfare State

Shakespeare is 1/20th the writer Tom Clancy is

Donate books via Alibris.com

Send books to seniors

Help kids heal

Donate books to aid in hurricane recovery

Princeton bookstore succumbs to cultural shift

Recommendations for leftist sci-fi

December 19, 2006

We must fight the mediocre science-fiction authors on the beaches...

Fantasy epic series recommendations

LibraryThing UnSuggester

Book Industry Split By Race

Review of Christopher Hitchens' bio of Thomas Paine

The Positions He Takes

John Barrell

Virginia Woolf and anti-semitism

Nazi Science Fiction

Eric Ambler and the British Espionage Novel

Donate books to aid in
hurricane recovery