mandarine

Here is how it all started out: I went to look around for blogging software to determine if one would be suited to my absidea writing project. I had long wanted to write down my absurd engineering ideas, and publishing them piecewise on the internet seemed the best absurd idea ever. I quickly found WordPress, and naturally the immensely resourceful blog that comes with it: Lorelle On WordPress.
I immediately felt at home among Lorelle’s wise advice: write well, proof-read, be smart, show respect.

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When I was young, I used to read in only one place: my bed — occasionally the public library.
And I used to read only one book at a time. Single-task reading seemed the only reasonable practice.

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Try to imagine Jane Austen, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Victor Hugo starting a new work: perhaps they would choose a special handwriting style, they would order a special paper format, they would bind it with the best leather and thread. Then they’d start writing, [more]

A new technology is slowly but surely gnawing at the marketshare of e-books. P-books, now distributed by many traditional publishing companies (under a license from inventor Goodmount Inc., Streetburg, AL), openly aim at seducing and bringing e-book readers over to the other side, with an outrageous number of claims in terms of technological superiority and innovation. I have taken some time to actually compare [more]

I recently stumbled upon a nice post by the Literate Kitten who had just finished reading Proust’s ‘Swann’s Way’ (in French: ‘Du Côté de Chez Swann’):

I learned that I can take on a challenging read, even when working at a challenging job. I learned that a few pages each evening, regularly read, do miraculously add up. I learned that I bring a certain element of unique reading to a great book. And, perhaps most importantly, I learned I could again be excited, down to tips of my marrowed-bones and quiver of my soul, about words.

Update: and another great post by Dorothy:

I’ve been reading in small chunks of about 10 pages or so, and read about 50 pages a week. For me, that’s the perfect way to read it; regularly enough to keep the story and ideas fresh in my mind, but at a slow enough pace to absorb it and to keep from feeling bogged down. This is most definitely not a book to rush.

Golden honey and warm milk

I had meant to start reading Proust’s books ever since I was fifteen. [more]

Brothers and sisters, I know it’s summertime and that some of us have been indulging in guilty light movie-watching. Some like myself probably went as low as to set their hearts on ‘Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest’. Allow me to suggest a painless way to redemption: [more]