| — | Albert Camus (via writingquotes) |
So for me, the most resounding moment of heroism in Harry Potter is not when he goes off to let Voldemort kill him, thereby destroying the chunk of Plot which resides in Harry’s very soul. Rather, Harry’s one moment of redemption in my eyes was when he flew into the burning Room of Requirement to rescue Draco Malfoy. Here he risks not only his life but his entire Destiny in order to save his worst enemy.
Unfortunately, Harry’s principles are not always so unwavering. He happily uses Unforgivable Curses at little or no provocation, whenever it becomes convenient to his Quest, and it is his devotion to the Quest we are expected to admire, not his loyalty to any actual people (which is, let’s face it, negligible).
I don’t mean to single Potter out here. I think there’s a general tendency in modern fiction to praise those who put the “big picture” ahead of the troubles of individual people. It seems to be seen, nowadays, as worthier to be concerned with large scale issues like destroying the Dark Lord than with small scale issues, like how many lives you wreck along the way.
| — | Daniel Hemmens (via wholesomeobsessive) |
have i mentioned how much i hate the cult of precociousness though
like bully for you, you were reading shakespeare in elementary school, that doesn’t make people who weren’t objectively stupider than you
Also, reading Shakespeare (or works deemed classics in general) does not make you a better reader than reading other authors. Just because a book has been deemed worth reading by many people does not mean that you personally will be interested in or will enjoy said book. Especially since “the classics” mostly encompasses books written by white people in Europe or North America.
my mom asked why i don’t read as many books as i used to and i just said it was because i read a lot of unpublished stories from independent writers online and she thinks that’s very good of me to give undiscovered authors a chance
hahaha
i just read porn
See The Fascinating Evolution of Cover Art From 12 Legendary Queer Books
1. Orlando, by Virginia Woolf (1928)There are approximately ten bajillion English-language…
What happens if you flip gendered book covers?
You are informed about a book’s perceived quality through a number of ways. Probably the biggest is the cover.
And the simple fact of the matter is, if you are a female author, you are much more likely to get the package that suggests the book is of a lower perceived quality. Because it’s “girly,” which is somehow inherently different and easier on the palate. A man and a woman can write books about the same subject matter, at the same level of quality, and that woman is simple more likely to get the soft-sell cover with the warm glow and the feeling of smooth jazz blowing off of it.
This idea that there are “girl books” and “boy books” and “chick lit” and “whatever is the guy equivalent of chick lit”* gives credit to absolutely no one, especially not the boys who will happily read stories by women, about women. As a lover of books and someone who supports readers and writers of both sexes, I would love a world in which books are freed from some of these constraints. Click here to read more about the perceived differences between ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ books.
This is a pretty interesting experiment from author Maureen Johnson.
I read this earlier today. Really, really worth looking at and thinking about. There’s a whole gallery of them.
| — | G. K. Chesterton (via mycolorbook) |
Chris Cobb, an artist based in San Francisco, has created an amazing installation in bookshop called Adobe Books- he catalogued every single one of the 20,000 books by color. The project is titled There is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World. They were arranged by hand over a 10 hour period, and he enlisted the help of 16 volunteers. Such beautiful results, they transformed the bookshop overnight.
(via)
“I wonder if you can help me. I was looking for this book. It had a blue cover….”
