I read them [Victorian authors like AC Doyle, Dickens and Tennyson] like a chef sharpens knives before going to work. Reading focuses the mind. Reading The Pickwick Papers puts a particular sort of edge on it – just the sort of edge I need if I’m going to leave the 20th century behind and spend a few hours hanging out in the 19th. (The term “hanging out,” by the way, appears in Pickwick, which was published in 1836, 130 years before my generation would claim to have invented it.) I love the extravagant stuff, so to speak, of the 19th century – the sepia-toned colors of the world in those bygone days, the immensity of the language, the potential for plot and character and setting and for outmoded, goofball science, none of which any longer exists in the modern world except when someone’s imagination takes a sentimental journey.Blaylock's Beneath London is on my Amazon Wish List. Ah, I'm not suggesting any reader buy it for me and there are two reasons: First, it is difficult to impossible to buy a book for someone else's Kindle. Second, I mentioned the book for your interest. Mine is taken up with Stross's new Laundry Files book and next week's release of Go Set a Watchman.
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The Muskoka Novel Marathon starts this Friday.
The Muskoka Novel Marathon is an annual event to raise funds and awareness for adult literacy in Huntsville and surrounding areas. To date, the event has raised over $105,000. Please see About the Marathon for more information.
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