- Follow Reading Freely on WordPress.com
Reading Now
-
Recent Posts
Categories
Blogroll
Archives
Meta
Category Archives: Classics and Literary
Commandos, Inklings, and powershell
If you can’t tell, dear readers, I’m in something of a reading funk — nibbling at many books but not immersed in any. Life has gotten busy recently: I’m now officially on a transplant list, a friend was just married, … Continue reading
Brothers and Friends
Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis© 1981 Warren Lewis, ed. Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Mead301 pages Reading of C.S. Lewis’ life and letters, I often encounter his brother Warnie Lewis, and regard him with complete … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews
Tagged Britain, C.S.Lewis, CS Lewis, Inklings, letters and diaries
Leave a comment
The Reading Life
The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds through Others’ Eyes © 2019 C.S. Lewis 192 pages One of the reasons I’ve grown so fond of Jack Lewis over the years is that he and I share some of … Continue reading
Watership Down
Watership Down© 1972 Richard Adams413 pages A small community sits on the precipice of destruction, but the few who realize it are unable to fully warn their comrades. A small band leave everything they’ve ever known behind, to face the … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews
Tagged adventure, Britain, English Literature, fantasy
19 Comments
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby© F. Scott Fitzgerald It is interesting how the passage of years can suddenly alter a reader’s take on a given book. Take The Great Gatesby, for instance, which I read in early college and was so underwhelmed by that … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews
Tagged "classic", 1920s, American Literature, Classics Club Strikes Back, F Scott Fitzgerald
12 Comments
Germans: terror and tedium
In the past week I’ve read or mostly-read, in the case of The Vampire Economy, two books with a German connection. The first, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, was by far the most interesting of the two. I read this … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, General, Reviews
Tagged economics, Germany, horror, Nazi
3 Comments
Of anthropology, Solzhenitsyn, and a return to the gulag archipelago
If I’ve been quiet as of late, I’ve been bedridden with a severe sinus infection, one that came with headaches so severe that I couldn’t even use my four days off of work to read. Yesterday was the first day … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, biography, Joseph Pearce, Russia, Russian Literature, science
4 Comments
The Moon is Down | The Pearl | The Red Pony
Yesterday I made the mistake of having a sinus headache, and in our Brave New World of Perpetual Hypochondria, I was ordered to the doctor’s office to have my nose jabbed in search of the dreaded Beer Bug. To no … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews
Tagged American Literature, American West, John Steinbeck, WW2
7 Comments
It’s not so lonely out in space: three to celebrate Apollo 11
Fifty-two years ago, men from Earth touched down on the moon and inaugurated a new era in human exploration. I usually re-watch From the Earth to the Moon (a Tom Hanks docu-drama that is in my “Everything is burning but … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews, science fiction
Tagged biography, H.G. Wells, human space flight, memoir, Star Trek, vintage SF, William Shatner
4 Comments
A clump o’ reviews, because I’m house/dog/pool-sitting sans PC
I am in town for Father’s Day and thus taking a moment to scribble on my computer, having spent the past few days happily bobbing in a pool. Taking care of friends’ houses in their absence is such a chore, … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews
Tagged American Literature, John Steinbeck, simple living
4 Comments