Meredith Sue Willis, the noted novelist and my sister-in-law, has made six of her novels available for free, as e-books, until April 20th.

Sue, as her family members call her, brings characters to life in just a few words. Her novels tend to be centered on places that she brings to life as well – small-town West Virginia, rural Massachusetts, even a cruise ship before that phrase conjured a plague ward.

Give ’em a try. And you well might like her free literary newsletter as well.

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I read all of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series when I was in high school.

I’m on a week of vacation — i.e., a nicer place to work — and have been re-reading them.

Why isn’t everyone re-reading them? They’re wonderful. Most of the seafaring descriptions are opaque to me, but it doesn’t matter. The stories are character-based and Forester is great at expressing personality succinctly, as well as taking us deep into Hornblower’s character over the course of the books. Besides, all the talk of binneys ’round the blaggard binge don’t get in the way of understanding the action

Some prefer Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin “Master and Commander” series. They are wrong. I believe the Internet when it says O’Brian’s battles are more realistic because they’re based on actual events. I don’t care. I do care, however, about O’Brian’s clumsy construction of his main characters. I can sense the author trying to inflate them into three dimensions. Then they’re given implausible roles and actions.

Of course you may disagree with me entirely about that. But here’s the killer for me: O’Brian relies on long pages of back-and-forth dialogue…while not telling you who’s talking. I don’t like having to count back by twos to find the original speaker. All I need is an occasional, “‘Me, neither,’ said Jack.” Is that asking too much?

Anyway, take a look at Hornblower and the Atropos to see if you’re going to like the series. That begins with a few chapters of Hornblower arranging the logistics for the flotilla portion of Lord Nelson’s funeral. If you find yourself as engrossed in chapters about logistics as I did, you’re probably hooked forever.

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From Sylvie and Bruno (1889) by Lewis Carroll:

“If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature!”

“No doubt of it,” I echoed. “The true origin of all our medical books—and all our cookery-books—”

“No, no!” she broke in merrily. “I didn’t mean our Literature! We are quite abnormal. But the booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty—surely they are due to Steam?”

“And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page.”

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On books and knowledge, from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, 1889:

“Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you think, the books, or the minds?”

“Rather a profound question for a lady!” I said to myself, holding, with the conceit so natural to Man, that Woman’s intellect is essentially shallow. And I considered a minute before replying. “If you mean living minds, I don’t think it’s possible to decide. There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn’t yet been written. But, if you mean the whole human race, then I think the minds have it: everything, recorded in books, must have once been in some mind, you know.”

“Isn’t that rather like one of the Rules in Algebra?” my Lady enquired. (“Algebra too!” I thought with increasing wonder.) “I mean, if we consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the other way?”

“Certainly we may!” I replied, delighted with the illustration. “And what a grand thing it would be,” I went on dreamily, thinking aloud rather than talking, “if we could only apply that Rule to books! You know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its highest power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought, except in the sentence where it is expressed with the greatest intensity.”

My Lady laughed merrily. “Some books would be reduced to blank paper, I’m afraid!” she said.

“They would. Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk. But just think what they would gain in quality!”

“When will it be done?” she eagerly asked. “If there’s any chance of it in my time, I think I’ll leave off reading, and wait for it!”

“Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so—”

“Then there’s no use waiting!”, said my Lady. “Let’s sit down. Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!”

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The superb novelist and teacher Meredith Sue Willis, who is also my sister-in-law, is teaching a course at a local Veterans Administration hospital on literature and medicine. It’s taught to hospital staff after work in the hospital.

Here’s the syllabus, which Sue has put under a Creative Commons license (which is where all syllabi belong, amirite?). It looks like a great set of readings organized around important topics. Isn’t it awesome that we can get curated collections like these from which we can learn and explore?

In fact, it prompted me to start reading The Young Lions, which so far I’m glad I’m doing. Thanks, Sue!

(Ack. I forgot that Sue told me about this because she’s using in the course something I wrote. So I am inadvertently logrolling. But sincerely!)

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My friend Evelyn Walsh’s short story “Birthday Girl” is the Story of the Week at Narrative Magazine. It’s a carefully observed little tale of norms and ethics embodied in a sleep-deprived suburban mom’s desire to do the right thing by everyone. From my point of view, it’s about how difficult it is to negotiate a community of acquaintances.

But I’m making it sound too heavy. It’s a fun, suspenseful read, and well worth the free registration at the site.

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From Kattallus, via metafilter:

Humanities and the Liberal Arts is the personal website of former Middlebury classics professor William Harris who passed away in 2009. In his retirement he crafted a wonderful site full of essays, music, sculpture, poetry and his thoughts on anything from education to technology. But the heart of the website for me is, unsurprisingly, his essays on ancient Latin and Greek literature some of whom are book-length works. Here are a few examples: Purple color in Homer, complete fragments of Heraclitus, how to read Homer and Vergil, a discussion of a recently unearthed poem by Sappho, Plato and mathematics, Propertius’ war poems, and finally, especially close to my heart, his commentaries on the poetry of Catullus, for example on Ipsithilla, Odi et amo, Attis poem as dramatic dance performance and a couple of very dirty poems (even by Catullus’ standard). That’s just a taste of the riches found on Harris’ site, which has been around nearly as long as the world wide web has existed.

There are months of serious browsing in the world of Prof. Miller’s thought. It is a particularly wonderful illustration of the boon of having worldwide access to unlimited worlds of thought.

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