What to Read -- Archives

What to Read -- Archives https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/blog/?ciid=507 Bookworms tell what's on their nightstands. (Archived posts. As of June 2011, any new posts by these authors are in the Alumni Blog.) summer.moore Changes to Stanford Alumni Blogs https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=34511 <p>Thank you for reading Stanford's alumni blogs. We want to notify our readers that we're taking our alumni writings in a new direction--forming one big community of bloggers rather than many blogs with specific topics. The blogs you've been reading continue to be available, but as archives only. All new posts will be on a single Alumni Blog (Click here to set up <a href= "../../../../collaborate/blogs/posts/rss/?ciid=32075">RSS notification</a>). The bloggers whose writings you've enjo...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=34511">More >></a> Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:00:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=34511 Ms. Summer Moore Batte 2011-06-21T20:00:00Z Will the Real Grace Marks Please Stand Up? submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=27567 <p>Margaret Atwood bases her novel <em>Alias Grace</em> on the historical records of Grace Marks, an immigrant to Canada from Ireland in the early 1800's. These records are equivocal and enigmatic, reflecting public sensationalizing of a case where two servants were convicted of murdering a gentleman and his mistress/housekeeper. Atwood puts readers into the social world of servants and gentlefolk, doctors, prison guards, farmers, drunkards, and horny landladies. Much is revealed of class and...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=27567">More >></a> Wed, 04 May 2011 16:02:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=27567 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2011-05-04T16:02:00Z Was a Good Time Had by All? posted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=26062 <p>     Revolutionary times—France and Italy and America in the late 18th and in the early 19th centuries: These were" the best of times"; these were" the worst of times." Or were they like all the other times of beauty and horror and how good it is to be young and energetic? </p> <p>     Giuseppe di Lampedusa's <em>The Leopard</em> and Peter Carey's <em>Parrot and Olivier in America:</em> the first is set in Sicily beginning wit...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=26062">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=26062 Ms. Wallis Leslie How Can We Tell? submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=25731 <p>     “It was so, it was not, in a time long forgot” is the stock opening of Arabic folktales and recurs throughout the pyrotechnically intriguing yet perplexing production of Salman Rushdie in <em>Satanic Verses.</em>  How can listeners tell what is so or what is not?  Should they even try? (Remember John Keats’ theory of negative capability that posits all creativity stems from the ability to tolerate not knowing an ...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=25731">More >></a> Sun, 06 Feb 2011 16:51:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=25731 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2011-02-06T16:51:00Z flashback https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24503 <p>I recently read the Iain Banks novel <a href= "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0349119287?ie=UTF8&tag=evidbasepare-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0349119287"> The Steep Approach to Garbadale</a>. It’s the story of a wealthy British family thinking of selling the family company to an American firm, but it’s more the story of the forbidden romance and coming-of-age of two of its young scions. As we learn more about the family and the his...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24503">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24503 Mr. David Orr Words in Our Ears, submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24130 <p>Much ink and cybertext has been devoted of late to lamenting, deploring, celebrating, and generally wondering about the value of various media for the delivery of words. Each medium has advantages. </p> <p>In the case of Nicholson Baker's <em>The Anthologist</em>, the author reads his own novel for the audible version of the text. Since the narrator is a poet who is putting together an anthology of contemporary rhymed and metered verse, the delivery of the sounds and rhythms of the w...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24130">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=24130 Ms. Wallis Leslie Get Us Out of Here https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=23850 <p>Jonathan Franzen’s <em>Freedom</em> and Ian McEwan’s <em>Solar</em></p> <p>Both novels combine the personal lives of characters involved with current environmental concerns: global warming, sustainable energy, population control, species extinction. Both novels contrast the personal limitations of the characters to the monumental problems facing homo, presumably, sapiens.</p> <p>Franzen shows how painfully and pitiably freedom is misused whether it involves free market c...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=23850">More >></a> Sun, 31 Oct 2010 04:01:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=23850 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-10-31T04:01:00Z Persepolis: Author Marjane Satrapi spoke in Philadelphia last year https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=22376 <a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=22376">More >></a> Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:02:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=22376 Mr. Gerry Jay Elman 2010-09-25T20:02:00Z Not Your Ordinary Beach Read, submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=18231 <p>How besides the morning news reports of the numbers of schoolchildren and shoppers blown up in Baghdad does awareness of the Muslim world enter our imaginations? Who are the people we see taking to the streets shouting “Death to Satan America," the people estimated to be nearly one-quarter of the world’s population, the people living in countries in every continent of the globe, the people who seem to be particularly enraged  by the policies of the United States? With the ...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=18231">More >></a> Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:25:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=18231 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-08-07T12:25:00Z Amateur Imperialists https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=17640 <p><img src= "http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/500H/9780805083200.jpg" alt= "book cover" width="134" height="200"><strong><a href= "http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?newRequestRefinementSelectionIds=0&navActionType=search&productStoreId=10053&navigationError=invalidKeyword&langId=-1&categoryId=9602&GO=GO&prevSearchTerm=&searchKeyword=Everything&productId=14099939&searchMode=mode%2Bmatchall&forceDisplayRootNav=true&amp..."> </a></strong></p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=17640">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=17640 Mr. Erik Wieland To Be Or Not to Be, reading Irvin D. Yalom's "Staring at the Sun," posted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2513 <p><a title="Keats' poem" href= "http://www.bartleby.com/126/52.html" target="_blank">Keats' poem</a> "When I have fears that I may cease to be" poignantly expresses the way that obsessing about the end of life can lead to nihilism. Keats’ fear that he might cease to be seems more like a certainty than a possibility, but the fear proves incapacitating to many people as Dr. Irwin Yalom explains and attempts to ameliorate in his book <em>Staring at the Sun</em>. </p> <p>Yalom uses hi...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2513">More >></a> Fri, 28 May 2010 00:35:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2513 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-05-28T00:35:00Z An overcomplete education: unlearning language myths https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2342 <img src="/get/file2/blogImage/507/356230531.jpg" alt=""><strong><a href="http://www.grammarphobia.com/books_specious.html" target= "_blank">Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language</a></strong> <div> <div id="_mcePaste" style= "position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 182px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;"> One of the difficulties of having a Stanford education is that you become the target of the insecurities o...</div> </div><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2342">More >></a> Fri, 14 May 2010 20:17:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2342 Mr. Erik Wieland 2010-05-14T20:17:00Z Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2341 <strong>Some</strong> critics have called <a title= "Calculating God" href= "http://books.google.com/books?id=TmPTHZY7Ma4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=calculating+god+robert+sawyer&ei=qETcS9ntKYfIyASmprzhCQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Calculating God</a> Sawyer's best book to date.<br> <br> I have recently had occasion to refer to it in footnote 11 to <a title="What Subject Matter Is Patentable?" href= "http://elman.com/2010/04/what-subject-matter-is-patentable..."></a><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2341">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2341 Mr. Gerry Jay Elman the science of parenting https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2301 <p>I've said in this space that I mostly read science fiction. The rest of what I read is generally nonfiction, with a smattering of mainstream fiction in there for leavening. These days, with a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old, a lot of what I'm reading is parenting books.</p> <p>Most of them aren't really of interest unless you have a baby who suddenly decided that the five o'clock hour is the perfect time to wake up, or a toddler in need of some entertainment of the non-destructive sort.</p> ...<a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2301">More >></a> Mon, 10 May 2010 03:41:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2301 Mr. David Orr 2010-05-10T03:41:00Z Kids' books about the end of the world (less gloomy than you think!) https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2290 I'm a huge fan of young-adult books. My favorite category: books about the end of the end of the world as we know it. Among the scenarios: no more gas, no more water, viruses run amok, genetic manipulation gone awry, reality TV gone too far, and so on. These tales sound gloomy--but they're not! They actually help kids deal with their fears in a post-9/11, post-Katrina world. Unlike adult "dystopian" novels such as "The Road," these stories give kids hope. The child heroes and h...<a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2290">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2290 Ms. Karen Springen Stop Staring at That Puddle Narcissus: Projection vs. Perception, posted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2282 <p>The ability to distinguish what is in front of our faces from what we wish to have or imagine to see in front of our faces is a crucial life skill, one that may be less dangerously honed in reading literature than in navigating daily life.<br> <br> Chinua Achebe calls Joseph Conrad's <a title= ""Heart of Darkness"" href= "http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe"> "Heart of Darkness"</a> a racist text while I see it as exposing contemptible&...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2282">More >></a> Thu, 06 May 2010 22:11:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2282 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-05-06T22:11:00Z We are still obsessed with the Donner Party https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2277 <p><a href="http://www.gabrielleburton.com/"><strong><img src= "/get/file2/blogImage/507/burton_.jpg" alt="">Gabrielle Burton</strong></a> has been thinking about Tamsen Donner, the wife of leader of the doomed pioneer party, for more than 25 years.</p> <p>             She and her family – her husband and three daughters – retraced Tamsen’s journey across the United States in a never-to-be-forgotten road trip. Burton re...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2277">More >></a> Thu, 06 May 2010 01:56:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2277 Ms. Frances L. Dinkelspiel 2010-05-06T01:56:00Z The world is my oyster, and you're the sand that will make my pearl https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2244 <strong><a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Unspeakable-Evil-Class-President/dp/1595142401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books" target="_blank"><img src= "../../../file2/blogImage/507/9781595142405L.jpg" alt= "book cover">I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be your Class President - Josh Lieb</a></strong><br> <br> When I was 4 years old I was convinced that the world centered on me.  I didn't just suspect it; I knew it.  But I wasn't supposed to know, so every once in a w...<a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2244">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2244 Mr. Erik Wieland A death row lawyer offers unsettling view of executions https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2176 <strong><img src= "../../../file2/blogImage/507/autobiography_execution.jpg" alt= "Autobiography of an Execution"><br> <br> <a href="http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/ddow2/dpage2/">David R. Dow</a></strong> is an attorney living in Texas and he has a job that most Texans don’t respect: defending death row inmates. <p>Texas is the kind of state that kills its criminals with regularity and doesn’t think twice. Unlike other states, such as California or Illinois, that have wrestled w...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2176">More >></a> Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:39:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2176 Ms. Frances L. Dinkelspiel 2010-04-24T15:39:00Z "Wake" first book of Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2111 David's mention of <strong>Blindsight</strong> reminds me to tell you how much I enjoyed the first book of Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy.   <strong><a title="WWW: Wake (Amazon.com)" href="http://www.amazon.com/WWW-Wake-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/0441016790" target="_blank">Wake</a>, <strong style= "font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">now available in text and audiobook forms, follows the parallel stories of a blind teenage girl and of the Internet.</span></strong>&nb...</strong><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2111">More >></a> Sun, 18 Apr 2010 10:02:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2111 Mr. Gerry Jay Elman 2010-04-18T10:02:00Z Sentimentality: The High Cost of Cheap Thrills, posted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2110 <p>Anyone remember <em>The Bridges of Madison County</em> by Robert James Waller? At the time, I vowed never to abuse my own measly talents or the spirits and intelligence of readers by offering up such marketable falsity. What a crock that children would be thrilled to learn that their mother had a steamy Clint Eastwoodian fling in intervals between hanging out the laundry and rolling the pie dough. </p> <p>Or perhaps readers have seen the 1940 Hollywood version of the p...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2110">More >></a> Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:41:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2110 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-04-17T20:41:00Z what does it mean to be intelligent? https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2102 That's the central question in <a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640">Blindsight</a>, an unabashedly literary and unflinchingly dark novel of philosophy and first contact, by <a href="http://www.rifters.com/crawl/">Peter Watts</a>. You can read it for free, <a href= "http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm">online here</a>, perfect for downloading to your Kindle or iPad.<br> <br> It's hard to know where to start to talk about a book this complicated. A basic ...<a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2102">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=2102 Mr. David Orr hello world (plus Blackout, by Connie Willis) https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1992 I'm the newest contributor to this space; I suppose I was invited to bring a slightly different perspective to the blog. At least, I hope so, since I have read only one of the books discussed here by others, and that was <a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Oedipus-Rex-Literary-Touchstone-Sophocles/dp/1580495931/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270505579&sr=1-1"> Oedipus Rex</a>, <a href="../post-view/?ciid=533">mentioned by Wallis</a>, which I read for school nearly two decades...<a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1992">More >></a> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:36:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1992 Mr. David Orr 2010-04-06T04:36:00Z Playing Catch-up: 2 Months of Nonfiction https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1409 Since I posted my last entry my work life has been an unholy mess.  While I've cut back on writing, looking at the piles of books on my bedside bookcase I don't seem to have stopped reading.  Here's what I've read in the last 2 months (all nonfiction, natch): <div> <ul> <li><a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Damp-Squid-English-Language-Laid/dp/019957409X/" target="_blank"><em><strong>Damp Squid</strong></em></a> <strong>by Jeremy Butterfield</strong> - A nice combination of linguisti...</li> </ul> </div><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1409">More >></a> Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:53:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1409 Mr. Erik Wieland 2010-03-29T00:53:00Z How Many Communists Can Fit Under One Bed? Reading Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon and Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna, submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1352 <p>Problematically dead, Arthur Koestler, international bad boy, political adventurer, intellectual, and sometime communist is in the news these days with a biography written by Michael Scammel.  Koestler’s book, <em>Darkness at Noon,</em> is voiced by Nicholas Rubashov, a once-powerful founder of an unnamed, but what readers must take to be the Communist, party in the U.S.S.R.</p> <p>Rubashov has been arrested at the behest of Number 1 (whom readers must take to be Stalin) and un...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1352">More >></a> Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:53:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=1352 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-03-21T16:53:00Z And What is Your Name? reading Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, submitted by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=962 <p>Today many people question the very concept of selfhood, suggesting that each of us is an amorphous cloud of identities no more real or constant than <em>maya.<br> <br> </em>An older view of personal identity is told in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke. When the younger son who had wheedled his share of inheritance from his indulgent father "came to himself," he decided to return to his wealthy father's estate and humbly begged to be taken on as a servant. The operative words here a...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=962">More >></a> Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:02:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=962 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-02-12T21:02:00Z Clash of the Titans (of the 16th Century) https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=739 <strong><a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/dp/0812977645/" target="_blank">Empires of the Sea - the Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World</a></strong> <div><a href= "http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/dp/0812977645/" target="_blank"></a><strong><br> </strong> <div>Do you remember who the great powers were on August 31, 1939?  Does anyone remember the colonial scramble in Africa, the end of...</div> </div><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=739">More >></a> Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:52:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=739 Mr. Erik Wieland 2010-02-01T00:52:00Z Alone in a Crowd, reading Yiyun Li, submitted by Wallis Leslie 1-18-10 https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=685 <p>Yiyun Li’s story “Alone” in the November 16, 2009 <em>New Yorker</em> was so haunting that it propelled me to her <em>A Thousand Years of Good Prayers</em>, a book of ten short stories that are similarly terrifying and fascinating. The People’s Republic of China is a land of roughly one billion more people than the population of the United States of America. China recently surpassed Germany as the leading exporter of goods, and if I read world history correctly, Chi...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=685">More >></a> Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:22:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=685 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-01-19T02:22:00Z Serving up Life by Wallis Leslie https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=625 <p>Flannery O’Connor remarked that great literature will hang on and expand in the mind. Robert Hass goes her one better in his poem “I am Your Waiter Tonight and My Name is Dmitri” that appears in <em>Of Time and Materials</em>.<br> <br> Hass reads the poem here at 45:47<br> <a href= "http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/20080221_publect_hassVN350K.asx"> http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/20080221_publect_hassVN350K.asx</a> </p> <p>In Hass’s poem...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=625">More >></a> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:54:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=625 Ms. Wallis Leslie 2010-01-01T01:54:00Z If only we understood each other there would be peace https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=609 <strong><a href="http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/">In the Land of Invented Languages:  Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers and the Mad Dreamers who tried to Build a Perfect Language</a></strong> <div><br> I read a snarky little technology blog called <a href= "http://www.gizmodo.com/">Gizmodo</a>.  Gizmodo, like other tech blogs, loves nothing more than making fun of people geekier than themselves (think back to 7th grade and you'll get the idea).  ...</div><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=609">More >></a> Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:42:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=609 Mr. Erik Wieland 2009-12-14T21:42:00Z Zonie Toponymy, or How the West was Fun https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=549 <div><span style="font-weight: 800;"><em><a href= "http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid29.htm"><em><strong>Arizona Place Names</strong></em><strong> <span style= "font-style: normal;">by Will C. Barnes</span></strong></a></em></span></div> <div><br> </div> <div>A book on place names? <em>Really?</em> Oh yes!  As the token nonfiction reader on this blog I thought I'd start by showing ever...</div><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=549">More >></a> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:28:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=549 Mr. Erik Wieland 2009-11-29T22:28:00Z The Plot to Save Socrates by Paul Levinson https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=548 Since Wallis started us out harkening back to Sophocles, it's not unfitting for me to raise the spectre of Socrates.  <br> <br> Paul Levinson's <strong><a title= "The Plot to Save Socrates (Google)" href= "http://books.google.com/books?id=DjQk5Yl9RykC&dq=the+plot+to+save+socrates&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=KhUPS5LnHJHdlAeExMmcBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false" target="_blank">The Plot...</a></strong><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=548">More >></a> Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:15:00 GMT https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=548 Mr. Gerry Jay Elman 2009-11-26T10:15:00Z Oedipus and Mr. Ono do self-discovery https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=533 <p><strong>What to Read - <em>Oedipus Rex</em> by Sophocles and <em>An Artist of the Floating World</em> by Kazuo Ishiguro</strong></p> <p><strong>(blog submitted by Wallis Leslie, 11-22-09)</strong></p> <p>     Among the Gnostic writings dug up in an urn buried in the Nag Hammadi desert was the injunction: "If you bring out that which is inside you, it will save you. If you fail to bring out that which is inside you, it will destroy you." </p> <p>  &nbsp...</p><a href="/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=533">More >></a> https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/blogs/post-view/?ciid=533 Ms. Wallis Leslie