A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

By -

I wanted this to have a more Douglas Coupland-like ending, i.e., uplifting and hopeful, with a little of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. As it is, the ending was just barely hopeful. I guess if I want a Douglas Coupland ending, I should read Douglas Coupland.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Haworth

By -
Image
Since taking a semester-long class on the Brontës at BYU many, many years ago, I have been interested in visiting Haworth, home of the Brontës. Patrick Brontë , father of the three famous author sisters, was clergyman at the local Anglican church, and the Brontë children grew up and lived most of their adult lives there. The Brontës are a fascinating family -- all four of the children who lived to adulthood had poems and/or novels published. Charlotte is probably the most well-known of the sisters due to her novel Jane Eyre , but Emily is also pretty famous for Wuthering Heights . Branwell , the only son, had some poems published. Anne , the youngest, wrote what my BYU professor considered the first feminist novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . Charlotte and Anne both wrote other novels and all of the sisters also wrote poetry. As children, the siblings created two imaginary worlds inspired and peopled by a set of toy soldiers given to Branwell by his father. The worlds had de...
Read more

Jesus and the woman taken in adultery

By -
Biblical scholarship has long been aware that the gospel account of the scribes and Pharisees bringing the woman taken in adultery to Jesus was not included in the earliest manuscripts of the gospel of John. In modern Bible publications the account is now commonly shown in brackets. For example, the English Standard Version (ESV) , says in a footnote: Some manuscripts do not include [John] 7:53–8:11; others add the passage here or after 7:36 or after 21:25 or after Luke 21:38, with variations in the text. Having the account not only be missing in some manuscripts, but appearing in different places and with variations, makes it an interesting case. The David Bentley Hart translation of the New Testament gives more detail and background to this: There is little doubt among scholars that the episode of the woman taken in adultery was not written by the same hand that produced the surrounding text. It is not found in the earliest manuscripts of John, or in any Greek or Lati...
Read more

Jon's Sweater: Free as in Freedom

By -
Image
I finally finished the sweater I designed and made for Jon, and here it is: Jon is a programmer, user, fan, and proponent of free software (similar to open-source software), hence the "free as in freedom." I don't know if the phrase is the official tagline of the Free Software Foundation , but it's the title of a biography of Richard Stallman , the father of the free software movement, and it describes what is meant by "free software." Anyway, I wanted Jon's sweater (the first I've made for him) to be unique to him, and this is what we came up with. It looks good on him, right? :)
Read more