R. Douglas Geivett's Blog, page 11
August 5, 2013
A Thing of Beauty���for You, Me, and Roger Shattuck
In a book called Candor and Perversion, Roger Shattuck writes, “Forty years ago in a Paris bookstore near the Od��on, I happened upon a large, slim volume of intermingled writing and drawing. That book was the first object I acquired for purely aesthetic reasons.” Shattuck goes on to lament the altogether passive response others had […]
A Thing of Beauty—for You, Me, and Roger Shattuck
In a book called Candor and Perversion, Roger Shattuck writes, “Forty years ago in a Paris bookstore near the Odéon, I happened upon a large, slim volume of intermingled writing and drawing. That book was the first object I acquired for purely aesthetic reasons.” Shattuck goes on to lament the altogether passive response others had […]
July 21, 2013
Building a Case for Architecture—Part 2 in a Series
My first entry in this series was about my experiences reading science fiction. Readers would naturally have expected a continuation of the series with more on SF. So what’s up with architecture? Here’s what’s up. I got the idea to reflect on my past and present experiences, with thoughts tossed in about what I’d still […]
July 20, 2013
Robert Heinlein and the Novelty of Science Fiction—Part 1 in a Series
I have no special expertise in science fiction. I’ve read little of it. But what I’ve read I’ve selected carefully and most of it has been a joy to read. The league of SF enthusiasts is intense if not immense. Though the SF genre has attracted a hefty percentage of readers, this result has been […]
July 19, 2013
Judging Mystery Novels by Their Opening Lines
Two days ago I invited readers to choose one of four mystery novels based on its first line alone. I also challenged readers to identify author and title for each of the opening sentences of the four books. Click here for details. Here are the opening lines, with title, author and year of publication: #1: ”A […]
July 18, 2013
Can You Judge a Book by Its First Line?
You can’t judge a book by its cover, right? How about judging a book by its first line? In recent weeks I’ve read four novels by different authors, all of them mysteries. In chronological order these books were first published in 1989, 1995, 1999, and 2002. If you were to decide to read just one of […]
July 17, 2013
Email Overload: How Soon Can I Get Back to You?
You’ve Got Mail! Anyone with an email account gets flooded with stuff that you simply don’t care to see, don’t need to read, and can’t bear to respond to. That’s a general problem. This problem works out in different ways for different people. Whatever the scenario, it creates a challenge to efficient email management, which […]
Silence Your Cell Phones—World War Z Is about to Begin
What is it about zombies that makes them so worth watching? I can’t prove this, but I have a hunch . . . nothing does. With nothing to do but watch the world come to an end, and no one to do it with, I went to see World War Z. How could I have […]
July 10, 2013
My First Published Dialogue—”Can and Would God Speak to Us?”
My most recent publication is the opening chapter in the new book In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of the Bible, edited by Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder (B&H Academic, 2013). The full title of my chapter is “Can and Would God Speak to Us? A Dialogue on […]
Book Prize for Being Good
In June 2013, our book Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life (Eerdmans, 2012) received the “Character Essay and Book Prize,” awarded by the Character Project at Wake Forest University. Here’s the Character Project’s description of criteria for awarding prizes: Several Character Essay and Book Prizes were awarded to essays or books on character which […]
