Maren Room special book displays:
Book of the week:
Wole Soyinka- Ake- also included is a review of the book
Reading reflections:
[Includes a binder with the reflections and, where ever possible, a
copy of the books described therein] The following have contributed
reflections- Emma Westermann-Clark, Leighton Cluff, Alex Sleeker, Peter
Rudnytsky, Bernie Paris
Displays thus far include:
1.The American wilderness ideal: a discussion
of the ideal Americans developed describing wilderness, including the
extolling of wilderness as a place without people or indeed any human
influence. Included in this ideal is the mythology of the westward moving
frontier and, attached to that, the western mythos. There are several
books in this display: John Muir (a book containing Muir’s writings),
Emerson and Thoreau- with a written discussion of the American wilderness
ideal. What was it? How did it come to be? The mythic west- a work by
an historian looking at myths of the American west and frontier settlement.
This works with the material on Muir and American wilderness, also with
the display on the West.
2. The mythic west. There is a binder associated with this reading
as well. Also two books on western women. It can explore the theme of
the mythic west- where were women in this mythology, as well as relationships
between the West and the East- how westerners view themselves, why there
was a sage brush rebellion in the first place, and how westerners depict
themselves. Also a book by Patricia Cook-Lynn called “Why I cannot
read Wallace Stegner” - she is a
Native American who talks about how works like Stegner’s are painful
for Native Americans because they tend to ignore the existence of Native
Americans in the New West.
3.Sickness and dictionaries- includes
two books: Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, plus a copy of a
chapter on Bright’s disease- Samuel Johnson suffered from dropsy.
There also is a copy of the book “The Madman and the Dictionary”-
about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, which includes a
description of Samuel Johnson’s own work.
Maren Reading Room
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