More On Reading And Writing

Tucson Weather Today

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I am just finishing reading the novel: Welcome To Hard Times by E.L. Doctorow. Didn't care much for it.

Last night I started reading the next book on my list: HELL by Robert Olen Butler. I bought this novel from a used bookstore a few weeks ago and just found out that it appears to be a first edition and is signed on the inner title page by the author.

Of course, I have no way of knowing if the signature was truly inscribed by Robert Olen Butler himself, but then again, I have no way of knowing it is not.

Here is snapshot of the Title Page

(Click the image to enlarge)

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There is an interesting Essay titled: On Getting Paid: Literary Magazines and Remuneration. Here is the first paragraph:

David Lynn began his Editor’s Notes for the Autumn 2004 issue of The Kenyon Review with some necessary questions: "How much is a fine story worth? What monetary value does a superb poem possess? How much -- and this is the inexorable point -- should authors be paid for their long, solitary work?"

Here is the link in case you are interested in the subject of payment to authors for literary work and would like to read the article.

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BORN ON THIS DAY

Sheldon Leonard

Born February 22, 1907

Died January 10, 1997

Sheldon Leonard's name served as a namesake for the main characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter in the funny American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, as the writers are fans of his work.

(Today is also the birthday of President George Washington)

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I have lately been musing about what is termed philosophy.

The philosophical statement "I think, therefore I am" is meaningless, in my opinion. Even the followup witticism "I think, therefore I think I am" has no real meaning when one thinks about it. Neither statement is, in itself, an actual provable fact. Both statements say nothing about one's state of being except as a temporary belief at a particular instant of time, and even then is merely an audible representation of a subjective chemical reaction and is therefore a questionable conclusion.

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Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.
--George Carlin