Since finishing two very different books, The House on Mango Street and Everything Is Illuminated, I’ve been thinking: Is it better to aim for a work within reach and succeed beautifully or to shoot for the moon and fall short? I think I would answer one way as a reader and another way as a writer.
Been enjoying my new deck of Chicago City Walks cards that I picked up the other day. I love maps and travel books, and this deck of cards outlines 50 walks in different areas and neighborhoods of Chicago. Helps me to isolate a section without fumbling with a big map, and shows me the boundaries of all those neighborhoods we hear on the Chicago news, “Oh, that’s where Pilsen is, and look, there’s Chinatown!” I also borrowed my dad’s copy of the Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago (sadly the 2003 version) when I was over there the other day. It too is very easy and accessible.
Came home from the bookstore last night to find a review of Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney torn out from Entertainment Weekly with a note from Jim that simply read, “You Want To Read This Book.” Mahoney rowed 120 miles of the Nile by herself in a small skiff some years ago. Entertainment Weekly’s Jennifer Reese writes, “The trip would be no more than a gutsy stunt if Mahoney were not such a beautifully precise writer and such a compassionate observer. . .by the end of her brilliant travelogue, you’ll wish she tackled the whole length.”
One reader's thoughts as she steps from book to book.
Books I've Finished
- "A Christmas Memory"
- by Truman Capote 12/8/12
- "Child's Christmas in Wales"
- by Dylan Thomas 12/7/12
- "One Christmas"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- "The Thanksgiving Visitor"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- Inside Mrs. B's Classroom
- by Leslie Baldacci 11/28/12
- The Bee Eater
- by Richard Whitmire 11/15/12
- There Are No Shortcuts
- by Rafe Esquith 10/28/12
- I'd Like to Apologize to
- Every Teacher I Ever Had
- by Tony Danza 10/21/12
- Corked
- by Kathryn Borel 10/15/12
- Year of Learning Dangerously
- by Quinn Cummings 9/30/12
- A Hologram for the King
- by Dave Eggers 8/23/12
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- by Harper Lee 7/18/12
About Me
- Christine
- I often have a few books with bookmarks in them at once. I enjoy classics more than contemporary works of fiction, often read historical fiction, and love to get glimpses into other people's lives by reading memoirs and biographies.
5 comments:
interesting thought. i think ideally one would want to shoot for the moon and succeed beautifully. but then i think, as a writer, maybe my idea within reach that succeeded beautifully would feel much like reaching that moon shot as any writing idea is much harder to lay out well and do it w/ creativity, innovation and grace while driving interest, teaching the reader something AND maintaining a sense of decorum. just my 2 cents.
ooooo! I want to read that.
No, he only wants to read that IF it's nonfiction. Cause that's how me rolls. It's kind of elitist, if you ask me.
Hee hee, fan the flames, FAN THE FLAMES!!!! Mwa ha ha... :)
So THAT'S how you spell Mwa Ha Ha. Martha, I hope you don't mind if I use that in the future. I would obviously choose to shoot for the moon AND succeed brilliantly. If at first you don't succeed.....and all that. The book sounds right up your river, C. Let me know how it goes. Do you have it in hand already?
Don't have it yet. It's coming out this Tuesday, I think.
Post a Comment