Charles Kesler’s new book on Barack Obama loathing is a window into the closing of the conservative mind, which Mark Lilla’s review opens a notch to let in a breath of wit–unusual for unusually dour liberals.
Books
Ed Skellings’s Death Leaves Florida Without a Poet Laureate for the First Time in 32 Years
A memorial to Ed Skellings will be held at the City Island library in Daytona Beach on Sept. 6 as the Florida State Poets Association lobbies the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott to formalize the poet laureate’s appointment and link it to Florida’s literary and literacy efforts.
Wallace Stevens Read by Bill Murray
Bill Murray reads two poems by Wallace Stevens, “The Planet on the Table” and “A Rabbit As King of the Ghosts” as part of Poets House’s 17th Annual Poetry Walk.
E.M. Forster: Why I Stopped Writing Novels
E.M. Forster describes why he stopped writing novels when he was just 45 in a BBC documentary. “Somehow I dried up” after The Passage to India, he says.
Florida Book Award Winner Caren Umbarger at Flagler Beach’s Beanery Saturday
Caren Umbarger, who won the bronze medal for fiction for “Coming To” in the 2011 Florida Book Award, will be talking about the book and reading from it at the Beachhouse Beanery Saturday, July 28, at 1 p.m.
Bob Graham, the First Lady and Umbarger: Honoring Florida’s Book Award Winners
Caren Umbarger, artistic director of the Flagler Youth Orchestra, was among the authors honored by First Lady Ann Scott at a Governor’s mansion luncheon recognizing the winners of the Florida Book Awards. Umbarger recounts the experience.
Flagler Reads Together: The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 2
Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 2: Union soldier Henry Fleming, still anxious about his first battle, projects his anxieties and anger on generals around him.
Flagler Reads Together: The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 1
Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 1: Union soldier Henry Fleming mulls his fears and apprehensions before his first battle against Confederate forces on the other side of the river.
Visits Decline 26% in 2 Years at Flagler County Public Library; E-Books Beginning Oct. 1
Patrons will be able to borrow the books through their digital devices. The library’s plans for a cafe continue despite a setback, and it has no plans for scaling back its physical presence: to the contrary. Expansion plans are afoot for the main branch library in Palm Coast.
Flagler Youth Orchestra Leader Umbarger Wins Florida Book Award for 1st Novel
Caren Umbarger, the Flagler Youth Orchestra’s artistic director, won a bronze medal for “Coming To,” her first novel, about a woman struggling for liberation from an imperious husband in Depression-era Iowa.
Philip Roth’s Everyman
In Everyman, this is the Philip Roth writing the eulogy from behind the ordinariness, the Roth who reads hearts like America’s best social cardiologist, still writing like it’s a midday office tryst he can pull off with as much virility as Portnoy in his prime.
Coming To: A Woman Re-Imagined
And the Making of a First Novel
Caren Umbarger, the artistic director of the Flagler Youth Orchestra, describes how she came to write Coming To, her first novel, which would resonate with “anyone who has struggled out of oppression to make a better life for themselves.”
The Lusty Joys of Book-Banning
Parents who run their homes like North Korea aside, it is literally impossible to ban a book in America anymore. An excerpt from Pierre Tristam’s Banned Book Week address on Sept. 26 to the Friends of the Library in Palm Coast.
Capital Punishment As a Crime More Dreadful Than Murder: Dostoyevsky on the Guillotine
The death penalty, in this passage from Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” is seen as a punishment mostly for what precedes it–and an indictment of those who impose capital punishment.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 42-43
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 42-43, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor’s Story.—Tom Confesses.—Aunt Polly Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters– Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck Finn.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 41
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 41, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: The Doctor.—Uncle Silas.—Sister Hotchkiss.—Aunt Sally in Trouble.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 40
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 40, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: Fishing.—The Vigilance Committee.—A Lively Run.—Jim Advises a Doctor.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 39
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 39, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: Rats.—Lively Bed—fellows.—The Straw Dummy.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 38
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 38, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: The Coat of Arms.—A Skilled Superintendent.—Unpleasant Glory.—A Tearful Subject.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 37
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 37, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: The Last Shirt.—Mooning Around.—Sailing Orders.—The Witch Pie.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 36
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 36, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: The Lightning Rod.—His Level Best.—A Bequest to Posterity.—A High Figure.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 35
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 35, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: Escaping Properly.—Dark Schemes.—Discrimination in Stealing.—A Deep Hole.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 34
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 34, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: The Hut by the Ash Hopper.—Outrageous.—Climbing the Lightning Rod.—Troubled with Witches.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 33
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 33, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: A Nigger Stealer.—Southern Hospitality.—A Pretty Long Blessing.—Tar and Feathers.
Flagler Reads Together: Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 32
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 32, full text, With E.W. Kemble’s original illustrations: Still and Sunday-like.—Mistaken Identity.—Up a Stump.—In a Dilemma.
Flagler Reads Together, Year 10: March Is the Month of Huckleberry Finn
It’s the 10th anniversary of Flagler Reads Together, and this year’s choice is Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Join the Friends of the Library for a series of events–Twain reenactments, movies, book chats and even a river tour. And read the book.
N-Word Reckonings: Wrestling With An Incendiary Word In and Out of Context
This essay on the history of the n-word as weapon is a postscript to the Mockingbird controversy and an introduction to next weekend’s performances. It is presented in the spirit of education, discussion—and, hopefully, debate.
God’s Plagues, Man’s Fates, Roth’s Nemeses
With Nemesis, Philip Roth puts an end to to a quartet of novels about death, dying and disease. Roth’s books are as much elegy as honest preparation. There’s no faulting him for not deluding us.
Zora Neale Hurston Festival in Eatonville, Jan. 22-30
The Zora Neale Hurston Festival in nearby Eatonville (just north of Orlando), Jan. 22-30, celebrates the life of one of Florida’s and black and American literature’s greatest 20th century voices.
Before School Censors: When Mockingbird‘s Harper Lee Spoke Proudly of Flagler County
In 2002, Harper Lee addressed Flagler County proudly when her book was the centerpiece of county-wide events. The school district’s censoring of the play this month contrasts sharply with that progressive history.
At Indian Trails, a Visa to Middleworld By Way of 2012’s Maya Calendar Rubbish
The Jaguar Stones trilogy authors Jon and Pamela Voelkel brought their live spectacle, humor and accurate history to some 90 Indian Trails Middle School students, setting a calendar’s record straight along the way.
Pregnant Mothers, Start Your Readers: Dolly’s Imagination Library Crosses Flagler Threshold
Dolly’s Imagination Library will ensure that every child born after Aug. 31 and living in Flagler will get a free book every month until kindergarten. The kick-off event is Sept. 1 at the Flagler County Library.
Dan Warren, Conqueror of St. Augustine at Its Bleakest, Still Heroic After All These Years
Dan Warren, who took on and broke the KKK’s grip on St. Augustine in the pivotal summer of 1964, was in Flagler Beach for an evening of conscience-rousing Thursday.
The Uses of Poetry
Reading poetry, Dave Riegel argues in his latest column, has a practical value in the board room, on the campaign trail, in advertising, and anywhere popular art is consumed.
V.S. Naipaul’s Nobel
Naipaul’s reputation has been growing as much for being the Susan Lucci of laureates as for publishing stories, plotless novels and journalistic travelogues at dependable intervals since 1957.