Literally Blogging

It may not be if the “Million Author Project” has its way. Their goal is to create various manuscripts contributed to by as many people as possible. Hence, “million authors.” It isn’t difficult; the rules are simple and you can contribute as little as a sentence.

From the site: “The Million Authors Project is an experiment to test the collective minds of several thousand people, all working together to create a written work. The goal of the project is to end up with a written novel, novella or short story for everyone to enjoy, written one page, paragraph, or sentence at a time.”

While you are there visiting the site, check out the FAQs - that will provide a lot of the information you might need. The documents (in pdf) explain the rest. And click on goodies - you can get wallpapers and buttons for your own blog or Web site.

They say the written word makes the writer immortal. Why not take a slice of that immortality for yourself? Better yet, see how you can work together in the human community to create a truly interesting work of fiction or non-fiction.

Million Author Project

Million Authors FAQs

Million Author Goodies

Book clubs are all over the place right now. They are sponsored by private individuals, bookstores, schools, churches, and are even online. If you love to read, you have probably considered joining a book club.

But what if you live somewhere where there isn’t an existing club? Don’t despair. You can still belong to a book club. You will just have to start it yourself. And don’t panic and run the opposite direction.

This easy guide will get you going so you can start your own book club. The two books below will complete your “training,” and make the experience a rich and rewarding one.

Remember to have fun with your new club. It will take some time for the club to find its pace, but that’s okay. Just enjoy it and let it mature at its own rate. You will get back much more than you ever put into your club.

How To Start Your Own Book Club

Rhys noted the other day the passing of Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. “The New York Times,” just published their obituary on Ms. Spark, and had some interesting comments.

Her work, unlocked from her innermost memories of her experiences before and after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1954, built a canon of short, sometimes macabre, sometimes humorous novels that sought to pare away the absurdities of human behavior. In her writing, evil is never far away, violence is a regular visitor and death is a constant companion. Her themes were generally serious but nearly always handled with a feather-light touch. Some accused her of coolness and even cruelty toward the characters she invented and then sent — sometimes quite merrily — to terrible deaths.

I have not personally read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. This obituary makes me want to do so. I wish I could have met this woman who spent the last thirty years of her life in Tuscany. She is photographed in the “Times,” with her cat and there is something about what I saw in the photograph and read in the article that made me most thankful literature keeps us immortal. I would have loved to talk with her - at least, now, I can enjoy her work and contribution to our culture.

New York Times Obituary - Muriel Spark

I have no idea whatever came over me the other day. I was thinking back to high school and college, and the kinds of literature I liked. As a side note, I took Russian, and at the time, spoke it fairly fluently. Because of that I developed a fondness for Russian literature. And that led me to reading more about Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

Akhmatova grew up during a very difficult time in Russia’s history. She learned on a close and personal level, the cost writers sometimes pay when they write within an oppressed society. Her son was imprisioned in 1938, in an attempt to silence her popular voice. He was not released until 1956.

Her longest and possibly most profound work was written during that time. “Requiem,” was penned by Akhmatova and was a way of recording life under the rule of Stalin.

A Collection of Poems by Anna Akhmatova - Online and free to read

Anna Akhmatova Biography

It didn’t me. I found it to be a subject of rather low interest. It seems that everyone ends up in court over some success, one way or the other. Author Dan Brown was accused of using parts of another book in his amazingly successful book, The DaVinci Code, but the London court ruled in Brown’s favor. This will, no doubt, have some impact on copyright law in the future. And I doubt it will hurt future sales of Dan Brown’s novels.

The DaVinci Code Keeps Up Its Winning Ways

No matter how you slice it, modern literature finds its beginnings and roots, in small literary magazines. Online and in hard copy, the literary journal has stood as the symbol of the “starving artist,” symbol for writers but it remains the true way to legitimate literature. Identity Theory, an online Weblog, that is a small literary publication, is a great example and a good source for both readers and writers. Whether it is fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography or other digital arts, Identity Theory may be the place for you.

Identity Theory is a regularly published, web-based magazine of literature and culture edited by Matt Borondy.

Few expressions of literature reflect our humanity more than poetry. It has a way of succintly and directly, through metaphor and symbolism, rhyme and meter, that exposes our most innermost selves. It speaks to the individual and it speaks to society. April is National Poetry Month and the 30 days of April barely seem long enough to explore all that poetry is.

If you haven’t explored poetry, thinking it too stuffy or perhaps too vague, take some time to rethink that stand. Poetry has a way of speaking to our hears and souls the way few forms of literature can. Although music has that ability, generally the written word is not so concise and prodding.

The page I have linked to below, for National Poetry Month, has a vast collection of poetry links that will satisfy any reader. They are organized in different fashion: There are poems about each season, there are collections by author, and there are collections by topic. Just stroll around a little. Give it a hour and release yourself from the noise of the technological age - the pace of a life that is going too fast for the nuturing of the human soul.

You will find yourself and those you love in these words. Somewhere, somehow, there is a poet who has found what you feel most deeply within and put it into words. Once touched by those words, you will never be the same.

National Poetry Month

The two books I have selected are excellent and very affordable. The Best Loved Poems, is only $1.50. The book below will help you understand poetry - once you know how to read poems, you will never stop!

About three months ago, I found a wonderful book club online. Well, maybe book club isn’t the best description. It is like a giant wish list that… well, that’s not really it either. Let me try again. This book club had resources to help me find books that I might be interested in… but that wasn’t all. The name of this site is Book Browse and it is a great Web site for readers who need a little organization and love to hear about new books.

Let’s face it. When you go to your “Local Bookstore,” whether that be in the mall or online, it is hard to find new things to read. It isn’t that they aren’t there. There are tons of new books all of the time. But in our rushed lives, hitting the bookstore at lunch can be less than fulfilling. This site fills in and helps readers find the treasures we might otherwise overlook.

You can search by genre, by theme, country of setting, or even time period. Each book has information from the jacket, excerpts, reader reviews, author interviews and biographies. Many also have reading guides for those wishing to use a certain book in a monthly reading club. There are also quotes from reading critics, which you can read or disregard totally.

Each book also has a link to a site that compares the prices of the book you are interested in, or you can go directly to Amazon and buy from there.

Book Browse has ways to organize book lists, prioritize reading, organize purchasing of books, and if that didn’t provide enough, each book on your personal book list has a box to make comments. It also has a section to mark to remind you why you want the book - a gift, a must read, a want to read, have read, or if you have rejected it as a possibility.

Book Browse is a great site for the casual reader or the serious reader. There is a free membership as well as a premium membership. The customer service is fantastic, the owner of the site is friendly and I think you will be pleased with your membership.