A Hospital Chaplain Reflects on Poetry and Dying

Some of my poetry reflects on dying and the fragility of our bodies. This story was also a thought-provoking and touching bit of writing.

Longreads

A few weeks later, my friend sends me a copy of Dunn’s poem “A Coldness.” The speaker says about his sick brother, “From then on he was delusional, / the cancer making him / stupid, insistently so, and lost. / I wanted him to die. / And I wished his wife / would say A shame / instead of God?s will. Or if God / had such a will, Shame on Him.”

I’ve found the lines about cursing God, “Shame on Him,” to be true. My supervisor had told us—me and my fellow chaplain interns—that we might find it appropriate to tell a patient that it’s all right to be angry at God. It takes me a while to say this to someone because a lot of my patients believe that to question God is to curse her very nature. They believe it’s God’s will for them to suffer. Some…

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Fun Literary Map of the World

I just wanted to share another fun little literary map. This one was created by LoveReading.co.uk and it’s absolutely AMAZING!

Have you ever wondered how many books were written about New York City or which authors wrote about life in the Australian Outback?

This world map is your one stop shop…and it’s free. Just follow this link >Love Reading < and have FUN!

Getting Lost in the Genre

Most fiction books fall under a single main genre…right?

Are genres created so that readers can find their favorite niches, or so that publishers can target their favorite customers?

These are just some of the questions which the Pop Chart Lab hope to address with this SUPER cool literary genre map. It’s a fun way to test your own knowledge as you travel down the virtual streets of genre-topia. (Sounds weird). Of course, these genres aren’t set in stone, but this infografic does help to explore how genres relate to each other and which genres we love the most.

“We went in with the idea that we were looking not at commercial distinctions, but instead peering deep into the text of the book, at almost the cellular level,” said Rachel Mansfield of Pop Chart.

Literary Quote of the Week

“Shall I tell you what sociology teaches us about the human race? I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. Show me a man or woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.” – Stephen King (The Stand)

The Books of World War II

There are tons of books about World War II. People love writing about this period of world history. However, there’s a new book called When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning that focuses on the actual books that soldiers carried with them to war. From pulp fiction to modern day classics, soldiers read books to remind them of home and/or pass the monotonous moments between life and death. Manning writes a fascinating chronicle of the importance of those works to the men and women who read them. For more information about Manning’s new book, check out this article by the Smithsonian.

When Books Went to War cover.

Literary Quote of the Week

“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.” – Henry James.

President Obama Launches New Literary Initiative

White House marshaled major book publishers to provide more than $250 million in free e-books to low-income students and is seeking commitments from local governments and schools across the country to ensure that every student has a library card.

President Barack Obama announced the two initiatives Thursday at a Washington library as part of his two-year-old ConnectED program that aims to improve education through digital connectivity.

The offer of e-books comes as low-income households still lag far behind others in computer ownership, but White House officials said libraries and schools in poor communities are increasing access to the Internet. Among the publishers participating in the program are such familiar names as Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House.

For more information, click here: http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-aims-ebook-library-initiative-toward-low-income-students/2742879.html