Neil Gaiman and his Unique Impact →

Some favorite Neil Gaiman Quotes

"You can no more reread the same book than you can step into the same river.”
“Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.”

“Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he said, “read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

Neil Gaiman said "You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine.”

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman; is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, audio theatre, and films. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and the novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book - currently reading

 

Will Durrant a favorite and influencial author →

Quotes

“The fear of death is strangely mingled with the longing for repose.” 

"I found it impossible to continue my pretenses to orthodoxy” "

Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.”

“Education is the transmission of civilization.”

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.”

 “Truth will make us free.” 

(This could be considered his most important work)

Durant wrote the preface to Fallen Leaves when he was 95 years old, and in answer to those curious readers, he said: “Please do not expect any new system of philosophy, nor any world-shaking cogitations; these will be human confessions, not divine revelations; they are micro- or mini-essays whose only dignity lies in their subjects rather than in their profundity or their size.”

Even though he says that he isn’t going to bring us deep insight and great depth of knowledge or thought, the book still leaves us waiting for it.

The 22 chapters condense his thoughts of sixty-plus years of his work, researching the philosophies, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations of the world.

His writings included thoughts about the soul.

He confirmed his love of and insight into the value of history, saying: “you are what you are because of what you have been: because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations: because of every element of the environment that has affected you, every man or woman that you have had: all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul.”

 

“The Story of Civilization”: 11 volumes and considers the living conditions of everyday people. Durant said that curious readers had challenged him to speak his mind on the timeless questions of human life and fate, having spent so much of his life focusing on just that.

 

Harlan Coben →

Harlan Coben was born on January 4, 1962. He writes mystery and thriller novels. His books pull you in quickly, and you don’t have to wait until halfway through to reach the point where you don’t want to put the book down. His skill in crafting a plot is tops.

I like his quote; only bad writers think they are good. Do you have to ask if having his 25 million dollar net worth gives him better insight?

He was born in 1962. His website is harlancoben.com, and he has 70 million books in print.

For more on this author, see his gallery https://www.harlancoben.com/gallery/.

Click on Book or Book names below to see the Review

The Boy From The Woods

Caught

Six Years

Official Harlan Coben Website

www.harlancoben.com

David Baldacci →

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David Baldacci was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from Henrico High School and earned a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, DC. 

While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power. Published in 1996, it was an international bestseller. Baldacci has published 36 best-selling novels for adults and six books for younger readers.

One estimate of his net worth was 45 million dollars. He says that he has been writing since childhood when his mother gave him a lined notebook to write down his stories. Fan, since I read 14 of his books at this writing and reviewed them here in the Book Review section, I have asked myself why I like his books. The main reason is that they make sense and hold my attention. I have reviewed some authors that have kept my attention for twice this many books, but the last few seem like they could be better. No so with David Baldacci.

Click Titles Below to link to Reviews

Baldacci, David, Walk The Wire

Baldacci, David, The Fix

Baldacci, David, The Hit

Baldacci, David, One Summer

Baldacci, David, The Simple Truth

Baldacci, David, Total Control

Baldacci, David, Last Man Standing

Baldacci, David, No Man’s Land

Baldacci, David, Simple Genius

Baldacci, David, First Family

Baldacci, David, The Long Road to Mercy

Baldacci, David, The Winner

Baldacci, David One Good Deed

Baldacci, David Memory Man

Dean Koontz →

Dean Koontz compares Real Life & Fiction by Brent M. Jones

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In Dean Koontz's book, The Crooked Staircase, the little boy Travis is hiding out in a fortified bunker below the ground with Cornell, an "End of Times" fanatic who does not need the world above and is spending his days reading.

Cornell has just finished reading the work of philosopher Immanuel Kant. On his table is Nero Wolfe mystery, a fictional character created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout.

He mentions his interest in reading all one hundred twenty-plus books of Henry James, having found "The Turn of the Screw" very screwy. 

Cornell says he understands lying low as he mentions the Wolfe stories.  Gavin leans forward in his chair and says, "This is real life now, Cornell. Real bad people, a real threat, not a story by Dickens."

Cornell replies, "There is no meaningful difference, cousin. Plato might agree. Except he's dead. When I return to reading fiction, which I hope to do in just a minute or two, it is my real life. 

Did Koontz use this dialog to shape an eccentric character or put action novels on more par with the classics? 

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John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. →

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Steinbeck said that “to write well about something, you had to either love it or hate it very much, and that, in a sense, was a mirror of his personality.”

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The acceptance points directly to the points of criticism that many expressed. Swedish newspapers said the award was "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes.” The New York Times referred to his books as “watered down by tenth-rate philosophizing.”

Steinbeck said of writing that “to write well about something you had to either love it or hate it very much, and that in a sense was a mirror of his own personality.”

His first financial success was with the writing of Tortilla Flat in 1935. Before that he made his living as a carpenter, ranch hand, factory laborer, sales clerk, caretaker and reporter, and was also given financial assistance by his father in the hope that he would develop his craft.

See Reviews

Is C.S. Lewis a Literary Influence →

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Is C.S. Lewis a Literary Influence? Is having a legacy the same as having a Literary Influence?

Lewis does indeed have a legacy. He is best known for his writings in the area of fantasy, especially his sci-fi trilogy and religion.

His fantasy works still have power over 50 years since his death. For example, the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe resonate with many and still endures. Lewis’s writings about his conversion to Christianity and thoughts about Christianity are prolific and have had a strong influence.

According to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lewis is not considered an academic theologian  but "in what you might call pastoral theology: as an interpreter of people's moral and spiritual crises; as somebody who is a brilliant diagnostician of self-deception."

Whether the Archbishop is correct in his opinion, much of Lewis’s writing does have broad appeal. “The Screwtape Letters” may be the best example, where his wise inquiry into temptation is cast as a series of witty letters between a demon and his apprentice.

“Mere Christianity” is a book that might confirm the Archbishop’s view, but then it was based on a series of BBC radio talks Lewis gave during the second world war, and it may not be fair to judge his writings on Christianity based on it.

Lewis didn’t have a lot of good things to say about poets, and some say that this is because he had not succeeded as a poet.

Other areas of focus were as a children's writer, novelist, memoirist, essayist, critic, broadcaster, and apologist. So yes, C.S. Lewis had an enormous literary influence. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University and Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. He wrote more than thirty books: just the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Click on the Covers Below to see Reviews.

In 1962 The Christian Century magazine published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question, “What books did most to shape your vocational latitude and your philosophy of life?” Here is is list.

  1. Phantastes by George MacDonald 2. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. 3. The aeneid by Virgil 4. The Temple by George Herbert 5 The Prelude by William Wordsworth, 6. The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto 7. The onsolation of Philosophy by Boethius, 8. Life of Samuel JoHnson by James Boswell 9 Descent into Hell by Charles Williams 10 Theism and Humanism by Arthur Jamers Balfour

 

Louis L'Amour →

Louis L'Amour said, "I think of myself in the oral tradition as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered- as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

When L'Amour died, he had sold over 200 million books, which is now well over 300 million. To ask what his influence was is redundant, considering these staggering sales. People liked him.

Critics said of his travels after he left home at 15 and his comments about all that he saw, especially all that he read during that time, as just L'Amour taking a license to talk about whatever he wanted. This is pretty sad.

The book that tells us about L'Amour is "The Education of a Wandering Man" For me reading was a turning point in seeing L'Amour's real depth and becoming a fan.  It also brought back much of what I had loved about reading and re-started my reading obsession.

Almost all of the other successful Western Writers say they were influenced by L'Amour in one way or another and had to consider him as they developed their place in that genre.  His plot approach and mastery of his genre are masterful.

L'Amour did more for the Western category as a distinct form of composition that brings its unique place in the whole body of literature than any other author. 

Click below to link to Reviews.

"The Education of a Wandering Man."

"The Empty Land"

See L'Amour's Poem "I'm A Stranger Here" Reviewed

"Smoke From This Altar"

See Review of Hondo

See Review of Down The Long Hills

Mustang Man

Yondering

Lisa Genova →

Lisa Genova has written five excellent books. Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens, and Every Note Played. Each of her novels is about people with heartbreaking diseases and she brings her background as a Neuroscientist to the stories that bring a compassionate look at these lives. Her approach as an author is unique to her and she is an important literary influence in literature today.

The Writers Digest featured an article, written by a guest columnist, in January 2018, titled “Living for All It’s Worth: The Novels of Neuroscientist Lisa Genova.” We can gain insight into Genova’s thoughts from the article with these quotes of hers used here.

 “People ask me if it’s depressing writing about these hideous diseases,” saying “there is certainly tragedy and heartache, but I don’t find it depressing. I find it inspiring. I learn so much about how to live from people who are dying or coping with various diseases.”

Genova, as a writer, has brought focus to life struggles. She looks inside the world of her subjects and has little need to draw from narrative and philosophy of others to show who her characters are. The plot becomes the importance of the life itself of her characters. She said, “Your value as a human being doesn’t depend on your memories, or what you can and can’t do, or whatever disease you may have.”

Her message is as much about love as it is debilitating diseases. The disease sometimes frees its victim to see what was most important in their life, in repairing relationships, and giving love freely.   

Genova said, “All my books are about empathy,” and adds that when she interviews people they say “I want to still love and be loved. I want to still matter. I want to be seen and heard.”

All five of her books are reviewed on this site. See the Past Review Section

www.lisagenova.com

See Reviews, Click on Books

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Professor Harold Bloom →

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Professor Harold Bloom:  July 11, 1930 -October 14, 2019

He was likely, no, he must have been, the most knowledgeable Shakespeare Scholar on the planet.

(See Shakespeare’s Literary Favorite Click Here) 

An American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities and English at Yale University. He wrote more than forty books, including twenty books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and a novel.  

Bloom considered Shakespeare the ultimate center of the Western canon and even said he was only a parody of Falstaff.” (See Falstaff Review Click Here) The pictures used to portray Falstaff do seem to resemble Bloom.  

Bloom's theory was that people tend ultimately to be either more Hamlet (see Hamlet review Click Here), “an abyss, a chaos of virtual nothingness,” or Falstaff, overflowing with vitality and endless laughter, for whom “the self is everything. “

His book "Shakespeare The Invention of the Human" (see review click here) says that Shakespeare's vocabulary of 22,000 words is so infinite that it proves he knew pretty much everything there is to tell about humankind. That he, therefore, “invented the human.”

In an interview published in 1995, Bloom reflected on the great authors of the Western world, stating: "We have to read Shakespeare, and we have to study Shakespeare. We have to study Dante. We have to read Chaucer. We have to read Cervantes. We have to read the Bible, at least the King James Bible. We have to read certain authors.… They provide an intellectual; I dare say, the spiritual value that has nothing to do with organized religion or the history of institutional belief. They remind us in every sense of reminding us. They do not only tell us things that we have forgotten, but they tell us things we couldn’t possibly know without them, and they reform our minds. They make our minds stronger. They make us more vital."

Click Book to See Review

Bloom Categories Include

20th & 21st Century Educators, 20th & 21st Century American Writers, American Literary Critics, New York University Faculty, Yale Sterling Professor, Shakespearean Scholars, Yale University Faculty, Jewish Scholars, Jewish American Academics, Critics of Postmodernism,



How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom

In How to Read and Why Harold Bloom sets out a list of books that he believes can instill in one a life-long love of aesthetically and intellectually great literature. 

 

Shakespeare: Poet, Writer, Actor, and Dramatist →

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William Shakespeare,  26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616, was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the most excellent writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.

Few poets have been even close to as essential and influential to the evolution of a language as William Shakespeare was to English. His most decisive influence on the tongue was his diction. Scholars estimate that Shakespeare used at least 20,000 words in his work overall and that he invented about 1,700 of those words. 

Literary Favorites in this blog have influenced other authors and literature itself. No one else will likely be found to equal Shakespeare's influence. 

The New York Times commented on Shakespeare by quoting Harold Bloom, who said: "that after 400 years, Shakespeare's genius is alive and well". They add to this Bloom's thought that "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is a secular scripture from which we derive much of our language, our psychology, and our mythology." 

Harold Bloom is a Shakespeare Scholar and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale. He was a former Harvard Professor, and it isn’t easy to write about Shakespeare without referencing him.

Dr. Samual Johnson said, "The essence of poetry is invention; such invention produces something unexpected, surprises, and delights.

Bloom said this thought led him to name the book "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human," which is reviewed on this site in the Review Section. It states that Shakespeare remains so popular, and his memorable characters feel so real because, through them, Shakespeare invented something that hadn't existed before. 

Good authors often explain that they find their stories' characters before writing them. Some say the character comes to them in their thoughts. The key is to listen closely to the characters;  they will tell you the plot once you find them.

No other author seems to have such deep character development as Shakespeare does. The characters seem to have no end of surprises in who they turn out to be, and then add to this that they change as their life impacts them. Bloom offers insight into why this is. He said of Falstaff and Hamlet that they were "free artists of themselves.”  He spoke of Shakespeare that the knowledge he gives us is not language but diction, the choice of words. 

Quotes

 “Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”

“With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.” 

“With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.” 

“Et Tu, Brute?” 

“Wise “All's well that ends well.” 

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

Click covers below

My Tweet to Harold Bloom about Shakespeare

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Toni Morrison, 'Beloved' author and Nobel Laureate, →

Toni Morrison, 'Beloved' author and Nobel Laureate, dies at 88

August 5th 2019

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Toni Morrison, at age 33, was jobless, divorced, with one child and one on the way when she returned to her parent’s home in Ohio.

Today she is one of the most respected American writers and an editor, teacher, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. She is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is known for her plays "Desdemona" and "Dreaming Emmett" and her movies, "A Moment in Time,” "Conversations with Legendary Women,” and "African American Women of Achievement.”

Her writing style is intended not to tell people about African-American problems and issues but to show them.  She does this without losing the traditional language. 

She has written many books, but three stood out for me. "Beloved,” "The Bluest Eye,” and "Song of Solomon.” Beloved was a book that showed us how black Americans repressed and denied the experience of slavery. It was inspired by a true story and is considered her most challenging book and one that some critics said they felt they experienced slavery.  

She said in her book:

"In hindsight, I think what is important about it is the process by which we construct and deconstruct reality to be able to function in it.”

This viewpoint of Morrison, intended for the book Beloved, applies to my views. I have felt that we need to write our life stories and that by doing so, we re-invent ourselves. Just telling your life story will cause you to connect events and suggest that one influenced another outcome. That is the reality changing, and it will change who you think you are

See These Reviews

Click on titles

Sula, by Toni Morrison

Tar Baby, by Toni Morrison

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison Explained, by Ron Davids

Tar Baby, Song of Solomon, and Beloved have not been reviewed yet.

Quotes by Toni Morrison

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

 “At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”

 “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”

 “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” 

Thomas S. Monson Prophet and Literary Favorites →

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Thomas S. Monson, President & beloved Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, passed away on January 2nd, 2018.  

"In addition to his deep love of scripture, Monson was also a lifelong reader of great literary works, often, over his 55 years of service, using themes and stories from novels, poetry, and musicals to express his faith and offer counsel to members of the church". The value of looking at some of his favorites is clear, as is his observation that "we become like those whom we admire.” 

He said of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic account, "The Great Stone Face," we adopt the mannerisms, the attitudes, even the conduct of those whom we admire — and they are usually our friends."

President Monson's Favorites Qu o.

"My Kingdom," by Louisa May Alcott  

"I do not ask for any crown But that which all may win, Nor try to conquer any world except the one within."

King Author quoted from Camelot. 

"Do not let your passions destroy your dreams." 

"A Tale of Two Cities," by Charles Dickens  

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us."

He suggested that this quote, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, also refers to our day:

 "This is your world. The future is in your hands. The outcome is up to you. The way to exaltation is not a freeway featuring unlimited vision, available speeds, and untested skills."

Favorite Quote by Clinton T. Howell

"It's Up to You,"

You are the one who has to decide; you’ll do it or toss it aside,

Whether you’ll strive for the goal that’s afar, 

Or be content to stay where you are.