We want diverse characters written by everyone, and we want enough writers of color that come to mind just as easily as white authors. We have to stop defaulting to white writers, from both the publisher’s and the reader’s perspective. And we have to stop seeing multicultural characters as an anomaly.
I think people are often quite unaware of their inner selves, their other selves, their imaginative selves, the selves that aren’t on show in the world. It’s something you grow out of from childhood onwards, losing possession of yourself, really. I think literature is one of the best ways back into that. You are hypnotized as soon as you get into a book that particularly works for you, whether it’s fiction or a poem. You find that your defenses drop, and as soon as that happens, an imaginative reality can take over because you are no longer censoring your own perceptions, your own awareness of the world.
The world of book tumblr is so often looseleaf tea and coffeeshops, but I have to admit that my favorite place to read by far (at least in the winter) is the cozy Pub in the basement of a stone building of my alma mater, the University of Chicago, with one of my favorite beers (this one is called Punk Rock for Rich Kids). Almost halfway through Middlemarch! (350 pages in!)
100% here for anybody else who takes books to the bar
Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren’t. I’m not surprised some people prefer books.
Books say: She did this because.
Life says: She did this.
Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren’t. I’m not surprised some people prefer books.
In Iceland, books are exchanged on Christmas Eve, and you spend the rest of the night reading. People generally take their books to bed along with some chocolate. How cozy and wonderful does that sound?
(More fun facts: Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country, and new books are typically published only during the Christmas season—the frenzy is called Jólabókaflóð, or the Christmas Book Flood.)
this is amazing (via awelltraveledwoman)
There is actually a fantastic planetmoney podcast that explains more about the Icelandic fascination with books. Listen here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/23/135846192/the-friday-podcast-a-city-on-the-moon
(via bookoisseur)
All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
