Alec's Shelf

Right now, me experimenting with Tumblr. In the future, me Tumbling my reading. Me elsewhere

[tonidorsay]

Reblog if you are aware that words can be violence.

[urania-reva-deactivated20231118]

Deutschlands Bundesländer || States of Germany

[alecsshelf]

God, Hessen is beautiful.

[unapproachableblackchicks]

[picadorbookroom]

In honor of Children’s Book Week, here’s a photo of an awesome kid.

[wonkistan]

Merry Christmas! Blogcation Advisory!

Hello, Wonkistan.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

(We do.)

While this blog may go silent in the next few days…

Please know that we’ll be back to our regular scheduled programming by New Year’s, including a new episode currently in the works!

So in the meantime, may your holiday be joyous. We’ll see you in 2013.

[alecsshelf]

Wonkistan is going on a well-deserved break. If you enjoy fascinatingly complex discussions about politics, then do yourself a favor and archive binge their posts or videos. Or just appreciate the contextually appropriate Charlie Brown Christmas gifs.

[alecsshelf]

Fahrenheit 451: A Novel

Ray Bradbury

**Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 **is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

The Hearth and the Salamander Reaction

Reaction to John's video on part 1

[alecsshelf]

Fahrenheit 451: A Novel

Ray Bradbury

Before

July 3, 2012

Haven’t read this book, but plan to as a part of the Nerdfighter Book Club.

Since I want to stay apace with the discussion, I actually have to read the first part over the next seven days.

I’m excited to read it for a number of reasons. I find the topic of book censorship both important and interesting and so I’m excited to read a book that is so famous for dealing with that topic. I’m also a big fan of John’s previous book club videos on the Great Gatsby and I’m sure Hank will be just as insightful in his videos.

I think it’s worthwhile to briefly put together my thoughts on censorship as sort of a way of seeing how they change.

Like everyone else who is a fan of books, I despise censorship and think it’s not only unwarranted, but is a real attack on our liberties. Of course, it’s easy for me to think this way because I’ve never really wanted to ban a book. There are books I wish people wouldn’t read, but I’ve never been motivated to prevent others from reading it.

But I want to be sympathetic to people who do have that motivation. Since censorship often involves school libraries and is ostensibly about protecting kids, I think it comes from a real and deep concern for children, coupled with misguided notions about books and children. I think a second component is that the person’s own beliefs are threatened by the book. I think most cases boil down into a mixture of one of these.

I respect people who have a deep concern for kids, but I want to lay out and challenge the “misguided notions about books and children.” Books are powerful and shape how we view the world — book-banners are absolutely right about that. But reading a book doesn’t happen in a vacuum. What readers get from a book is personal and unpredictable, particularly when they are encouraged to relate the book to their feelings and experiences.

I think book banners sell themselves and kids short. By passing up on reading and discussing a book, they miss a chance to sell the ideas the book apparently threatens. Perhaps they don’t think of themselves as astute or eloquent enough for the job, but I think one of the nice things about literature is how it empowers us to relate our values, opinions and experiences to other people. By calling for censorship, they take that chance away from the students too.

I haven’t read the book so this might be rather irrelevant, but I wanted to preserve my thoughts as they are pre-Fahrenheit 451.

[alecsshelf]

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Katherine Boo

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.   In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.   Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”   But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.   With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

[alecsshelf]

The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien

<

div>

<

div>

<

div>

<

div>

<

div>

<

div> This deluxe hardcover edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy contains a short introduction by Christopher Tolkien, a reset text incorporating the most up-to-date corrections, and all of Tolkien’s own drawings and full-color illustrations, including the rare “Mirkwood” piece.

<div> <BR /> <div> J.R.R. Tolkien's own description for the original edition: "If you care for journeys there and back, out of the comfortable Western world, over the edge of the Wild, and home again, and can take an interest in a humble hero (blessed with a little wisdom and a little courage and considerable good luck), here is a record of such a journey and such a traveler. The period is the ancient time between the age of Faerie and the dominion of men, when the famous forest of Mirkwood was still standing, and the mountains were full of danger. In following the path of this humble adventurer, you will learn by the way (as he did) -- if you do not already know all about these things -- much about trolls, goblins, dwarves, and elves, and get some glimpses into the history and politics of a neglected but important period. For Mr. Bilbo Baggins visited various notable persons; conversed with the dragon, Smaug the Magnificent; and was present, rather unwillingly, at the Battle of the Five Armies. This is all the more remarkable, since he was a hobbit. Hobbits have hitherto been passed over in history and legend, perhaps because they as a rule preferred comfort to excitement. But this account, based on his personal memoirs, of the one exciting year in the otherwise quiet life of Mr. Baggins will give you a fair idea of the estimable people now (it is said) becoming rather rare. They do not like noise." </DIV> </DIV> </DIV> </DIV>

[alecsshelf]

Mad About Madeline

Ludwig Bemelmans

For over sixty years, Madeline’s adventures have enthralled her ever-growing audience. This collection brings together all six of the Madeline books in one volume. Every well-loved word and picture is here, plus an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen, an essay by Ludwig Bemelmans on how he created Madeline, and working sketches of Madeline, as well as photos of the Bemelmans family. This landmark volume will be treasured by the entire family.

<p> Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was the author of the beloved Madeline books, including Madeline, a Caldecott Honor Book, and Madeline’s Rescue, winner of the Caldecott Medal.

[alecsshelf]

This is a test

.