Author: Deacon Nick

The Knight

Books and Reading

First Impressions of The Knight by Gene Wolfe

I don’t often understand Gene Wolfe’s books, but I’m always captivated by his characters. Wolfe is one of those authors whose books leave me feeling a bit like an alien abductee who’s been returned to his home: I know something important just happened, I just don’t quite know what it was. Fortunately, The Knight seems more accessible to me than other Wolfe novels I’ve read (which, admittedly, haven’t been many). And Wolfe still has the power to create compelling, likeable characters. Like Severian in The Book of the...

Don Quixote by Dore

Books and Reading

2 References to the Knight of the Sorrowful Face

I just started Gene Wolfe’s novel The Knight, and the first thing I encountered was this epigraph by Lord Dunsany which just happens to mention my favorite knight: The Riders Who treads those level lands of gold, The level fields of mist and air, And rolling mountains manifold And towers of twilight over there? No mortal foot upon them strays, No archer in the towers dwells, But feet too airy for our ways Go up and down their hills and dells. The people out of old romance, And...

Declare

Book Review / Books and Reading

Disappointed by Tim Powers’ Novel Declare

I finally had to abandon Tim Powers’ supernatural spy novel, Declare. I read over 200 pages into it and just couldn’t go any further. I really enjoyed Powers’ earlier novel, The Anubis Gates, and I had high hopes for Declare after reading reviews. But the book didn’t evoke any emotional reaction from me at all. I never really connected with Hale, the main character, and I didn’t care for the way Powers’ narrator alternated back and forth between the 1940s and the 1960s. I think part of the...

World Prayers

Prayer / Spirituality

One in Our Desire for Faith: The World Prayer Project

Sometimes I forget the beauty of other faith traditions. Sometimes I get so narrow in the books I read, the places I visit, the web sites I search for, that I miss out on the presence of God in the wider world. The World Prayers Project is a collection of adorations, invocations and celebrations from different faiths and faith traditions. It displays humanity’s unceasing desire to respond to God’s call. As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The World Prayers Project shows how...

Master and Commander read by Simon Vance

Books and Reading

Master and Commander Audio Book Review

Simon Vance does a superb job reading every character in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander except one: the central character Jack Aubrey. I just finished listening to Blackstone Audio’s unabridged version of Master and Commander, and the book keeps getting better each time I experience it. I first read it about ten years ago, then a few years after that I listened to Patrick Tull’s unabridged audio recording from RecordedBooks.com. This time around I didn’t get so bogged down trying to understand the naval jargon, so I was...

Books and Reading

Scare Your Friends with These Gag Books

From Matthew at Gizmodo: This toy is shaped like a row of books, and includes a sensor that triggers spooky noises and pushes out one of the books when someone walks past. Read more about the books or order them at Things You Never Knew Existed.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Books and Reading

Top 10 Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I was looking at my commonplace book and was again struck by the eloquence of Henry David Thoreau. Here are some of my favorite Thoreau quotes, most of them from Walden: I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. …to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. In short, I am convinced, both by faith...

Bibliomaniac

Books and Reading

Possessed by Books

I’ve known some bibliomaniacs in my time, but Archdeacon Meadow has got to be one of the worst afflicted: Archdeacon Meadow accumulated so many books that he was forced to sell a considerable portion of his collection. But as their auction proceeded he experienced such passionate anguish that he left the room and returned again in disguise to begin bidding for his own books. –Otto L. Bettman, The Delights of Reading: Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes

Marginalia

Books and Reading

I Write in Books – and I’m Proud of It

One of the comments I often get from people who have read my book ROMAN Reading is “I could never write in my books.” It’s hard to get people to understand the value and pleasure of writing comments, thoughts and reactions in their books. But now I have a book to recommend to them: Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books by H. J. Jackson. I found this book in the Notre Dame bookstore, and I couldn’t be more excited to read it. From the back cover: Imaginative and amusing,...