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I feel like I haven’t been reading much lately but I have. I have read all the books I had scheduled to read for October and will read my just in case choice, Hecuba by Euripides, this weekend. I’ve been reading lots of articles for my historical fiction MOOC and watching lectures. I am really impressed with the quality of the class. I started reading Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks for the class and have a few other books on hand. One of them, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, I will probably start reading tonight.
Last night I thought I’d take a break from all things historical fiction so I picked up Auden’s Dyer’s Hand, a book of essays I started long ago and then let languish. But this week seems to have gone on far too long and my brain is getting squishy. Perhaps I spent all my mental powers writing about Burke. Whatever it was, I read the first page of “The Dynamo and the Virgin” about four times and still had no idea what the heck he was talking about. It was not a good boost to my self esteem. I need a vacation. And I actually will be getting a little one. Bookman and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary on Saturday so we decided to extend the celebration through Wednesday next week by taking a few days off. Woo! I can hardly wait.
What I really wanted to pass along tonight is a happy discovery I made today, the Emily Dickinson Archive. Dickinson’s papers are not all housed in the same place. What this digital archive does is creates a single place that gathers together online access to all of Dickinson’s digitized manuscripts. You can view the actual manuscripts and, even more amazing, you can do word searches on the texts if you are looking for something specific. There is also a lexicon of more than 9,000 words Dickinson uses in her poems. It provides definitions when you click on a word. Neat, but what would be even more awesome is if it would also act as a concordance with links to the poems in which the word appears. Something for the Archive to work on for the future maybe!
For more details about the archive, there is a great article from the Sunday New York Times books pages. There is also an article in the Harvard Gazette.
Have fun playing!
I’ve always loved Emily Dickinson’s poetry and I just read one of the articles you linked and it mentioned her “handmade books”! OMG, I think I love her more now. Anyway, looking forward to hearing what you think of Year of Wonders. I read that with a book group years ago and it was great for discussion.
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Iliana, I have always loved her poetry too. It is so very different from anything else. You love her more for her handmade books, I loved her more when I found out what an accomplished gardener she was 🙂 So far Year of Wonders is pretty good. People have just started dying. Reading about babies dying while on public transit is not a good idea.
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The Emily Dickinson archive does sound like a great place to get lost in.
I’ve read both Year of Wonders and Deliverance Dane. The former was great, until the end, which I loathed–but I know others liked it. I have trouble with Brooks as an author, but I keep on reading her books, so something resonates, I guess.
Deliverance Dane was okay–I loved the premise of the story, but the main character was a bit dim when it came to connecting the dots and their were so loose ends that bugged me.
Nevertheless, they were both enjoyable books to read.
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Hi Stefanie, I just finished Hecabe (Euripides) for my Great Books group. Really loved it. The passion that she has despite her slavery. We talked a lot about whether revenge is ever really appropriate. I think E. did a fantastic job depicting her character and motivations. Looking forward to your post. Happy Anniversary.
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Oh, I love Dickinson. Her phrase ‘a certain slant of light’ is pure magic and something I think of every time I look at one of Monet’s Haystack paintings.
Have a wonderful anniversary break. The Bears send their best wishes, as do I.
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You know I am not a very big poetry reader, but I do like Emily Dickinson, so thanks for the heads up on those digital archives. I will have to check them out. And you will have to write more about your historical fiction class–the books you are reading and the things you are learning–I wish I had more time to do something like that–maybe in the spring…. I would just be happy to get through the books I set out to read for myself–I need to be more organized though (story of my life!).
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