It's been a while, but I am considering resuscitating and re-imagining my Booknotes blog. Yesterday, I was talking to a friend outside of church, and I mentioned that in my present job of software trainer, I find myself pouncing on the student workers, or even participants in my Microsoft Word or Outlook classes. It goes something like this:
"Hey--is that a book you're reading? [...] What book are you reading? [...] I read books. [...] Is it a good book? [...] What's it about? [...] Oh! Have you read [x] book?"
Yes, I'm a little starved for literary conversation. But at the same time, I have read more books over the past year than I did during all of grad school. I enjoy talking to people about what I'm reading while I'm reading it. But generally the people around me have not read the book I'm reading when I'm reading it. So I either talk anyway, or I let it go and keep reading. Enter the blog.
When I taught my last children's lit course as a postdoc, I required blogging assignments for each book in the course. The students were required to write three posts--one that "anticipated" the novel (sort of a go-ahead-and-judge-the-book-by-its-cover assignment), one that closely analyzed a "notable moment" in the novel (something that caught their attention while reading), and one that looked back on the novel and offered a finished analysis.
The one that resonates most with me is the second, because that's how I read, and that is how an advanced student of literature should read. It is the collection of "notable moments" that forms itself into innovative research ideas, since these are the ideas that stimulate the mind of the reader/researcher. So the posts you will be reading are these: my "notable moments." Whether or not they form themselves into any other shape, or simply mirror the shape of my own mind as it engages with texts, I don't know. But I feel like the externalizing will be... well, something that wasn't out in the world before. And right now, that feels like something.
2 comments:
Oh goody! I do love notable moments sorts of posts. Though I am usually far too lazy a reader and blogger to write them. Maybe yours will inspire me. At any rate, I will very much enjoy reading them.
I was given this link from a friend on FB (naturally, but we share the same dis-ease when it comes to books.) I myself have recently revived an old book review concept of mine I called Piles and Philes a little tongue-in-cheek -I have a ton of books to review and am glad to know I'm not the only one in this condition. I'm glad she directed me to your page, and I hope to enjoy many many moons worth of new posts from you!
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