2 B or Nt 2 B?

Posted by Jack on 10.23.2008 at 3:09 pm

Going along with my previous Book Bench stolen post, an my love for conversing about the deterioration (or, ahem, development) of language, here is a brilliant effort from folks writing in with their text versions of novels:

Last week, we asked readers to e-mail us their text-message versions of great works of literature. We couldn’t quite decipher all the entries we received, despite consulting individuals half our age, but there were a number of laudable efforts. Among our favorites was this distillation of Herman Melville’s tale of the proto-slacker Bartleby the scrivener, penned—er, thumbed?—by Kate Laubach, of upstate New York. Note the woeful exclamation points:

Bartleby prfrs nt 2. B frm DedLetrOfice. !B! !Humanity!
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Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, great books, text messaging, the book bench

Economics and the Grapes of Wrath

Posted by Jack on 10.23.2008 at 1:06 pm

The following is an excerpt from an interview with John Steinbeck (as culled by The Book Bench at The New Yorker), concerning his mindset while writing the epic The Grapes of Wrath. One could argue that it is fairly germane.

When I wrote “The Grapes of Wrath,” I was filled, naturally, with certain angers—certain angers at people who were doing injustices to other people, or so I thought. I realize now that everyone was caught in the same trap. If you remember, we had a depression at that time. The Depression

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2 Comments » | Tagged Book & Author News, great books, john steinbeck, the book bench, the depression, the grapes of wrath