about books and literature

from Esther LombardiI awoke this morning to a light covering of snow on the ground this morning. It's the 29th, and January is coming to an end. Days that started out with celebrations of the new year are now hunkering down toward the more constant rhythm of the rest of the the year...But, there's so much to do and read this year. The whole year roles out before you, full of possibilities. Have you determined a reading schedule? What books and literature will you read this year?
Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote: "To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June."
In The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare wrote: "You'd be so lean, that blast of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,I would I had some flowers o' the spring that mightBecome your time of day."
In A Calendar of Sonnets: January, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote: "O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turnDismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urnOf death! Far sooner in midsummer tireThe streams than under ice. June could not hireHer roses to forego the strength they learnIn sleeping on thy breast."
Edith Sitwell wrote: "Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home." As January draws to a close, gather up your books in your arms and prepare for the year to come. You're well prepared for it (or you will be, when you read a few of the resources across the Books & Literature network of About.com). READ, READ, READ... And, enjoy a bit of conversation about books as you sit by the fire and try to stay warm!
In the Spotlight

Trust the VoiceThe first part of Eudora Welty's wonderful memoir, One Writer's Beginnings (1984), is appropriately titled "Listening." (Subsequent sections are called "Learning to See" and "Finding a Voice.") Revisiting her childhood, Welty recalls the voices of her parents and teachers--and of Mrs. Calloway, the "dragon-eyed" librarian in Jackson, Mississippi. Though "SILENCE in big black letters was on signs tacked up everywhere," Mrs. Calloway's "every word could be heard all over the Library."- Grammar Guide Richard Nordquist

More Topics
The Almost Moon by Alice SeboldContemporary Literature
The Death of the Old Year - TennysonClassic Literature
Quotes by Famous PeopleQuotations
Poets You Ought To Know AboutPoetry
Symbolism of the Four GospelsMedieval History
"Tuesdays with Morrie" on StagePlays
Ad Infinitum - A Biography of LatinAncient / Classical History
People of the BookFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war. - Contemporary Literature Guide Mark Flanagan
BrisingrTogether, the first two fantasy novels in the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini, Eragon and Eldest, sold 12.5 million copies worldwide. Now, Random House has announced that there will be a first printing of 2.5 million copies of the third book, Brisingr, and that the series, originally planned as a trilogy, will not end with three books, but with four. - Children's Books Guide Elizabeth Kennedy