Thursday, February 17, 2011

Literary Blog Hop: Feb 17-20

Welcome to this week's Literary Blog Hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase!

This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion.

How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure. YA literature may fit into this category, but if your blog focuses primarily on non-literary YA, fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, or chick lit, you may prefer to join the blog hop at Crazy-for-books that is open to book blogs of all kinds.

Instructions for entering the Literary Blog Hop:

1. Grab the code for the Button.

Literary Blog Hop


2. Answer the following prompt on your blog.

(Suggestions for future prompts? Email to them us at thebluebookcase@gmail.com)

Mel u from The Reading Life says:

Not long ago I read and posted on The Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama, 1966. It is one of the very best novels about WWII, written from the point of view of a Japanese Buddhist who was drafted as a combat soldier. He had no idea how long he would be gone or if he would really ever return. He had room in his backpack for one book, so he took The Red and the Black by Stendhal. He carried it through the jungles of South Asia for 4 years. He said it helped keep him sane in the face of all the horrors he saw. This made me wonder what work of literary fiction I would take with me under similar circumstances."

If you were going off to war (or some other similarly horrific situation) and could only take one book with you, which literary book would you take and why?

Our answer this week comes from Ingrid:

If I were to only have one book to get me through tough times, it would definitely be War and Peace. (Remember my post on it? Just had to put that in here.) Tolstoy's characters are so endearing to me ... Pierre, Andrei, Natasha, Nikolai, Andrei's crazy dad ... I love them all. Each of these characters have to face incredibly tough situations, and I love seeing how they evolve because of it. Because really, life is hard and horrible things happen to everyone. I love the way Tolstoy explores disenchantment and all the contingencies of life. Hands down War and Peace will always be the book I go through to get me through difficult times.

3. Add your link to the Linky List below.

Happy Hopping!


Comments (16)

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This is an interesting choice....though I cannot comment in detail as I would like to - I have yet to read this novel (am still rather intimidated by the size of it, and mostly by the fact that it is by Tolstoy!).
Good question Mel! It reminds me it's time for me to re-read my favorite book and I'm looking forward to adding some new ones to my list.

Belle
Great question this week girls
What a powerful question this week! Should make for some great discussions.
Fun question! While I'm enjoying my first read of War and Peace, I don't think I'd take it to war with me--if I'm already surrounded by war, I probably don't want to read about it.
War and Peace is really great...not what I ended up picking, but close. There were so many things that surprised me about W&P, it was so different from all of my assumptions.
At first read, I thought it was a desert island type of question but then realised there was a lot more to it. I couldn't find the ideal book, but I am happy with the choice I made.
Great hop topic...no lie.

I think i'd take Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire. It's about the battle at thermopylae and it really goes beyond the battle and explores why and what it means to wage war.

Thanks for hosting as always.
Great question. Tricky for me as I cannot imagine myself in a war situation except as a dead body.
I really liked this week's question. I went with a favorite book rather than one of the best books I've read--not least because it's HUGE and would last a long time, but also because it has several meditations on war time and peace time and why sometimes it's necessary to engage in the former to preserve the latter.
Great question!

Also, did you pay for your Linky?
2 replies · active 736 weeks ago
Hi Bethany. Nope, I just used the free one. :)
Ooh! I must go and look that out! I was so sad when my linkies all died. Thanks!
An interesting question, which luckily i had an answer for
I didn't think I'd ever be able to answer this one.... but then I got a movie flashback thingy and just went with it. Thanks Mel U!
War and Peace is an awesome novel which is great read for me so far. As far as I came to know about this novel story I'm very impressed. Thanks
Academic manuscript editing

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