Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!
On Blame, Booker Lists, and Mystic Varmints
|
2 February 2025 Let's Wander a BitLiterary Nomads is up and running--well, traveling, anyway! Since we've chatted last, two episodes have gone up, an introduction to the podcast (with a taste of dramatic irony, never a bad thing), and some discussions of how that impacts literary accountability. These ideas, the narrative distance we often overlook as readers, will be essential to understanding what we make of Andrew Marvell's poem, "To His Coy Mistress," which we will "camp out on" for about four episodes before resuming our journey. Would love to know what you think! Give the first couple of episodes a listen and--knowing it's still early in the process--offer some feedback! I want it to be educational, entertaining, and even surprising. My goal: you leave episode with something new to think about!
Mailbag: Literary NomadsMailbag questions for the podcast are welcome! What literary or literacy-issue questions would you like to see discussed? These could be:
Feel like recording the question for airing on the podcast? Do! Feel like submitting questions from your students? Absolutely!
Finding CommunitiesAs my own manners of attaching to communities and supporting our freedom of expression, our development of critical literacies against narratives which threaten to overwhelm, I wanted to let you know that I've been updating the Engagement page on Waywords, adding ideas for local community involvement along with groups that are already involved in similar issues. Also, I've undertaken the ad astra Readership Challenge, a small group of readers who remind us that even our reading choices are political. I encourage you to look their challenge over, and if you like what you see, follow their social media (most Instagram). If you comment on the challenge, they will invite you to an IG chat with others, too. A Little Fun Contest: Booker ListsI offered this to the Street Team a couple of weeks ago, but I'll open it up to everyone: I follow a lot of the book awards out there, but always take the nominees and winners under advisement; that is, many contests are highly particular, avoid some authors/titles for ideology, and the like. I'm rarely satisfied with the final outcomes, though the nominee lists are always fascinating. And I've never been unhappy with what I've read from the International Booker short list. The Booker Prize will announce its 2025 long list on February 25. What have you read, global reach, written in the past year, that should be nominated? Would love to know what I've been missing! And a deal: Anyone who can name a title that actually appears on the Booker Long List will get a (secret) prize from Waywords! (Must enter before the list is announced, of course.) I'll start:
How Did My Hybrid Poem Turn Out?Part 3 of my discussion of the "fingertrap" sestina, along with a draft version of the poem, demonstrates that a new form must discover itself, never emerging whole. I will call it "ambition yet-to-be-realized." 2025 and a Reading ThemeI don't know how the beginning of 2025 is going with your personal TBR pile, but mine is feeling quite full! My book group is--among many other things--reading the complete works of Nietzsche this year along with a load of early civilization writing, starting with the Sumerians. For myself, though, I've set aside a geographic intensive this year (Japan/China/Nepal in 2024, Eastern Europe in 2023) to explore what I call "Principled Reads," pro-democratic themes that may well keep me standing upright, at least I hope so. Here are several of them:
I'm not in any hurry for the order of reads and I'm setting aside a couple of them to be read across a few months (Arendt, de Toqueville). And I'm not proposing anything formal like a discussion group, but if anyone is interested in joining me in these reads, I'm happy to communicate, trade resources and thinking, etc.
Early Recommendation from My Reading:What a difference a translation makes . . . . Jay Rubin's new version of the 1991 English edition of Murakami's cyber-noir/ fantasy thriller restores over 100 omitted pages and makes several key changes in word choice to transform the fine first book in startling ways. If you have not read Murakami before, this title now joins my shortlist of "start here" novels from him. If you have read the '91 book and enjoyed it, it's time to revisit the walled city, the Calcutecs, and whatever critters lurk beneath Tokyo. It's a new read, and a fitting one before you get to its recent sequel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami, Japan (2024)
“Three decades later, we have bullseyes on all sides and don’t seem to care. In fact, we now fasten targets on our friends like charms on a friendship bracelet.”Zoe Hitzig reflects on how, over the past 30 years, we have not only surrendered our privacy, but we have mythologized into a language of compassion and love.
Whose Fault Is All This, Anyway?The most recent episode of Literary Nomads poses a question of accountability for the texts we read, their controversial ideas and installations in our culture. I suggest that the text (and/or its characters), the author, or we readers could all be culprits in the placement of a text's ideas. Where do you fall in this set of choices? What's within and beyond the scope of any of these actors to affect? Would love to know your opinions and offer them to listeners!
Predicting the shadow will appear, long and ominous. Steve What's Ahead?
|
Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!