“Was not everything, after all, like this bewildering woodland, this dance of dark and light? Everything only a glimpse, the glimpse always unforeseen, and always forgotten.”
The Man Who Was Thursday / G.K. Chesterton
“‘A man’s brain is a bomb,’ he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his own skull with violence. ‘My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man’s brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe.’”
The Man Who Was Thursday / G.K. Chesterton
“He was the wrong man to have played Samaritan, and he’d known it, known it there on the road and in every irreversible moment since.”
The Expendable Man / Dorothy B. Hughes
![There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any order they were given. But no person could command these strange creatures more than three times. Twice already the Wicked Witch had used the charm of the Cap. Once was when she had made the Winkies her slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. The Winged Monkeys had helped her do this. The second time was when she had fought against the Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends.
The Wizard of Oz / L. Frank Baum
[illustration via]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mch21aPM5N1qjsf5ho1_500.jpg)
There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any order they were given. But no person could command these strange creatures more than three times. Twice already the Wicked Witch had used the charm of the Cap. Once was when she had made the Winkies her slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. The Winged Monkeys had helped her do this. The second time was when she had fought against the Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends.
The Wizard of Oz / L. Frank Baum
Todays dilemma:
Boredom by Alberto Moravia
The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes
Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson
Tink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.
Peter Pan / J.M. Barrie
I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvelous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small—like looking at the Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.
Parnassus on Wheels / Christopher Morley / 1917
![Soon the low red moon will rise in the inky sky, and the first wolf will come out of the ruins, raise its head, and howl, sending a lone call on high, into the icy expanses, to the distant blue wolves sitting on branches in the black groves of alien universes.
White Walls: Collected Stories / Tatyana Tolstaya
[Illustration: Ashmantle]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5empm5QE31qjsf5ho1_500.jpg)
Soon the low red moon will rise in the inky sky, and the first wolf will come out of the ruins, raise its head, and howl, sending a lone call on high, into the icy expanses, to the distant blue wolves sitting on branches in the black groves of alien universes.
White Walls: Collected Stories / Tatyana Tolstaya
[Illustration: Ashmantle]
RAY BRADBURY 1920-2012
- Up From the Depths of Pulp and Into the Mainstream (New York Times)
- A Man Who Won’t Forget Ray Bradbury (Neil Gaiman at The Guardian)
- Margaret Atwood on Ray Bradbury (The Guardian)
- On the Passing of Ray Bradbury: “Meeting the Wizard” (John Scalzi)
- Ray Bradbury Didn’t Love All Tech, but He Loved What Mattered Most (TIME)
- An interview with Ray Bradbury from ComicCon 2010 (The Q&A Podcast)
- How Ray Bradbury Changed the World with Sam Weller and Gary Wolfe (OnPoint Radio)
- Remembering Ray Bradbury (Tor.com)
- A World of Possibility (The Economist)
- R.I.P. Ray Bradbury (io9)
We have every right and should adapt tales because society changes. But the Grimms would flip over if they were alive today. They were better known during their time as scholarly writers; they were in the pursuit of the essence of story telling. By collecting different versions of every tale they published, they hoped to resuscitate the linguistic cultural tradition that keeps people together—stories that were shared with the common people.
—Jack Zipes, fairy tale scholar
Read his full interview about fairy tale adaptations with Smithsonian Magazine’s Reel Culture blog
[Illustrations: Hansel and Gretel: Kay Rasmus Nielsen / Little Red Riding Hood: Walter Crane]
“I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
—Henry David Thoreau
To the Best of Our Knowledge explores the life of Henry David Thoreau
