Paul Virilio Teaches Us to Fall Upward and Swim in the Ether in Open Sky
“A generation that had gone to school on a horse-drawn streetcar now stood under the open sky in a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body.” Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller Paul Virilio is […]
Himalayas of Literature: From Wallace to Joyce
“The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.” –Reinhold Messner Himalayas of Literature is one of Book Oblivion’s newest ongoing course series. Participants reside all over the world and read through some of the most intense literature on the planet. Stephen L. Russell is our guide and chooses […]
On Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is NOT the Message
“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” Marshall McLuhan When we say truth […]
James Paul Gee Describes the Transforming Power of Perspective in Education
James Paul Gee describes the Transforming Power of Perspective in Education
Haruki Murakami Novels in Chronological Order
“I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.” Haruki Murakami HARUKI MURAKAMI NOVELS […]
The Best Books for Studying Magical Realism
In a magical realist story there must be an irreducible element, something that cannot be explained by logic, familiar knowledge, or received belief.” ~David Young and Keith Hollaman Magical realism is a radically complicated literary mode. It’s so complicated that I get uncomfortable every time I hear someone describe a work of literature as a […]
Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist
I’m excited to announce our summer book club read! Most of you know I choose a book that I think you will enjoy AND that I haven’t read. This season is no different. Intuition is a concept I’ve been thinking through for a while in various forms and occasionally comes up in our conversations as […]
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
This analysis of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World explores the themes and characters of Haruki Murakami’s wildly entertaining novel.
Mark Z. Danielewski on Craving the Familiar
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. ~W.H. Auden I just spent two weeks in Northern California – a place that is incredibly familiar and that I am lucky […]
Mark Edmundson on Becoming the Author’s Advocate, His Attorney for Explication and Defense
“The kind of teaching I part company with, the kind that seems to me most destructive to the freedom of self-making, is the kind that simply applies a standing set of terms to every text that comes to hand. These forms of teaching are a little like bad translation. Every work, alas, is rewritten in […]
Dear March – Come In by Emily Dickinson
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.” ~Emily Dickinson “Dear March, Come In” is Emily Dickinson’s eloquent greeting to the season of Spring. By personifying the season we have thought about every single day of a long and […]
Steven Pinker on the Need for Empathy in Enlightenment Now
“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.” ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays Steven Pinker, the […]
The Best Haruki Murakami Love Quotes
Keywords Haruki Murakami love quotes, empathy, desire “We are most alive when we’re in love.” John Updike Haruki Murakami is not known for writing romance novels, yet something about this list of Haruki Murakami love quotes demonstrates his unique posture toward love. The way he describes the human condition continues to resonate with readers. He […]
Haruki Murakami’s Timeless Writing Advice
Keywords Haruki Murakami Writing Advice, Magic, Writing Routine, “I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is […]
Haruki Murakami’s Earliest Writing Motivations
“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.” ~Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Haruki Murakami wrote an introductory essay, The Birth of My Kitchen Table Fiction, when he […]