Member ostrom

About My Library

It's an eclectic assembly of books, authors, and topics, even as tags and clouds show preferences, obsessions, and distractions. Poetry comes first, but beyond that, I like books: detective fiction, African American literature, canonical fiction, obscure fiction, essays, languages, philosophy, theology, Swedish literature, religions, gardening, et alia. I'm an English professor, scholar, fiction-writer, and poet, so these vocations inform my library. Quirky books on arcane subjects are most welcome, as are arcane books on quirky subjects. I'm drawn to old paperbacks of almost any kind--the pulpier, the better. Can Library Thing bring order to the vortex of books that has accompanied my life? That is the question. As Al Davis (an English major) of the Oakland Raiders is alleged to have said once, "Just read, baby." Most of my books were recently paroled from storage; slowly they're finding their way to the LT catalogue.

My ratings of books are high for two main reasons: I tend not to hang on to books that I dislike intensely, and I know how hard it is to write a book--any book. If I give a book three stars, then I probably won't be in a hurry to read it again. Four stars mean the book is at least very good; sometimes they mean that I recognize the book is great but that it may simply not be the kind of book I treasure. For example, Alexander Pope was a great poet, a superb verse-technician, but I truly enjoy very little of his work. Five stars mean I think the book is excellent, and I usually have great affection (if for varying reasons) for most (but not all) of the five-star books.

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About Me

http://poetsmusings-muser.blogspot.com/

I write poetry, novels, screenplays, and a blog.

Location

Pacific Northwest

Homepage

http://www2.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/

Memberships

LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Also On

Blogger

Favorite Authors

W. H. Auden, James Baldwin, Coleman Barks, Matsuo Bashō, Wendy Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, John le Carré, Constantine P. Cavafy, John Cheever, Anton Chekhov, Edmund Crispin, Countee Cullen, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, Graham Greene, Dag Hammarskjöld, Dashiell Hammett, Gerard Manley Hopkins, A. E. Housman, Langston Hughes, P. D. James, Randall Jarrell, Robinson Jeffers, Pär Lagerkvist, Jay Macpherson, Henning Mankell, Claude McKay, Josephine Miles, Fae Myenne Ng, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Jack Olsen, Hans Ostrom, Blaise Pascal, V. S. Pritchett, Arnold Rampersad, Thomas Sanchez, Dorothy L. Sayers, Karl Shapiro, Georges Simenon, Stevie Smith, Stephen Spender, Baruch Spinoza, Rex Stout, Leo Tolstoy, Gore Vidal, Eudora Welty, Alan Williamson, Garry Wills

Member Connections

Friends

ellenandjim, lovamabooks, theoldman, TRHummer

Interesting Library

ablachly, AllieW, aluvalibri, andrealibrarian, biblioarchy, callyperry, Cariola, Caroline_McElwee, christiguc, clarkpoetry, cmngrd, deliriumslibrarian, digifish_books, Eurydice, ifjuly, ijustgetbored, JFBallenger, juliebean, karenweyant, krolik, lovamabooks, mandavistas, MoiraStirling, NativeRoses, paigecm, quicksiva, rustermans, shoshin5, SilentInAWay, southernbooklady, susiebright, tardis, terrybain, the_red_shoes, vreeland, ZiaSun