Black Lamb

Books aren’t life, but then what is?

June 1st, 2003

BY ED GOLDBERG

What books changed my life?

The Three Little Kittens, which is the first book I learned to read by myself. I’ve never been the same.

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Category: All Book Issue, Books and Authors, Goldberg | Link to this Entry

A story of language

June 1st, 2003

BY JOEL HESS

One of my fondest childhood memories is the every-Sunday excursion with my father to the Cobbs Creek branch of the Philadelphia Public Library. Dad was an appliance salesman for a small independent store, these days a vanished institution done in by suburban malls and national chains. His job required him to work miserably long hours, and well into my childhood he would arrive home only shortly before my bedtime. Sunday was the only day I got to spend any real time with him, so I especially cherished our weekly library ritual.

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Honorary Black Lambs

June 1st, 2003

BY BLACK LAMB

June’s a jumble of juicy birthdays, but novelists are the overwhelming winners in the literary derby despite the appearance of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, William Butler Yeats on June 13, in 1865. Before he got old and Celtic mysticism got the best of him and his verse, Yeats wrote book after book of lyrical, transcendent poetry. The true goods.

Another poet, one of a different sort, adorns June, and that’s the late Allen Ginsberg, born on the 3rd in 1926. And a great master came on the scene, in Russia, on the 6th, in 1799, when Aleksandr Pushkin drooled his first. And although he’s better known for his grim novels, Thomas Hardy, born on the 2nd in 1840, was one of the great poets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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The best books of 2002

June 1st, 2003

BY CAROL WOLFE

Dear Carol,

My husband and I have been avid readers of both your column and Black Lamb since 1946. We have been particularly fond of your yearly book issue and, after reading it, have had some lively discussions. My husband Gilbert saves every copy despite the fact that he never agrees with your opinions. He loves to pull out the issue from April 1947 in which, upon the release of Bend Sinister, you describe Vladimir Nabokov as a “…third rate hack. Next time you have a hankering for a white Russian, may I suggest one part Kahlua to two parts vodka.” I have heard that you were unable to do a book issue in 2002 due to the fact that you were in Sweden to accept some type of award and was wondering if you would be resuming the tradition in 2003.

Gretchen S.
Beachwood, Ohio

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Posted by: The Editors
Category: All Book Issue, Books and Authors, Wolfe | Link to this Entry