Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

Since the previous blog got me into a bit of a photography mood, I continued looking for more great pictures. And more than that, I wanted to go beyond the USA, and see what the rest of the world had to offer! Turns out, the rest of the world offers a whole lot in the way of amazing pictures of amazing places. I have always loved traveling, and if I happened to trip and fall over a giant sack of money, I would use it for travel (or a pony) to see all the natural wonders of the world. But, until that giant bag of money pops up, I will have to settle for looking at these books filled with pictures of amazing places that I might get to actually see in person one day! Or I can just wander around Burdette Park and imagine I am in the French countryside. I'm an English major, using imagination is kinda what we do.

                                                         Landscapes Without Memory   by Joan Fontcuberta

This is a book combining two great things in one: mountains and paintings. It describes various mountain landscapes that have also appeared in photographs and paintings, and compares them. And holy cow, these are the real deal and great looking. There's a huge assortment of pictures, ranging from multicolored desert mountains to snowy peaks in the Himalayas; it’s just amazing. It makes you want to travel to these remote locations faster than you can find a passport and the sketchy pilot to take you there. The paintings are sometimes of the actual mountains, and sometimes of something that just captures the mood of the place. Either way, the pictures look amazing, like nature decided that it wanted to really go all out when creating these landscapes. The book is like flying around all these amazing places in a plane, then flying through an art gallery. None of the photos or paintings of these places have people or buildings. They simply show nature at its finest, next to art at its best. What’s not to like?

                          Through the Lens
This book's material moves way beyond landscapes, using pictures of people and cities as well as landscapes. While I've been focusing mostly on landscape and the majesty of nature, I like this book so much I had to include it. After all, when you’re traveling, you’re not just looking at steep mountains and colored deserts, you’re also exploring cities and towns, meeting people, and having experiences. And this book feels like a series of experiences. Each chapter is broken into sections based on continent or area, with pictures of huge events like revolutions or national celebrations, as well as pictures of dancing and just sitting. It’s a collection from National Geographic, so it has pictures from as early as the 1920s, as well as recent ones, and they are all beautifully shot and presented. Photos of people and places show both the strange and the mundane, making both beautiful. If you like pictures or love travel, check this out. It’s full of great pictures of the earth, but also of the people who inhabit it.

                                              Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places 

Want to see even more pictures? More places? This book is filled to the brim with both! Open up any page and see pictures of life from all over the world. Like the previous books, it focuses on landscapes, like sweeping shots of the deserts of Saudi Arabia, to multicolored gardens in the Netherlands, to cave paintings in Australia and dancers in Morocco. Does it make me want to travel to see these place? Oh, yes it does. Books like these remind us just how amazing the world is, and why we should try to see more of it.

If you want to see exciting places, but don’t exactly have the budget, thumb through any of these titles or others like them! Just look at the pictures, and it’s easy to imagine yourself standing right there. Want to see everyday life shown in an artistic way, that's just as interesting as foreign locations and giant peaks and mountains? Then just lift your eyes from your smart device, and look around you.
 

CP

Literary Criticism and You

When you’re reading a work of fiction, how much do you think about it? Not just the basic stuff, like:  Is the plot interesting?, or who are the characters going to eventually hook up with? I mean, how much thought do you put into what is going on in the story, what the author is trying to say, and what the themes are? Well, that is a huge part of what goes on in literary criticism. Readers examine texts to find themes, ideas, and subtexts in the work.  They may even relate the work to the world outside the story, and what the book has to say about the world. If any of that sounds interesting (and as an English major, this is the stuff I live for), then you might be interested in the four new books in Salem Press’s Critical Insights series. These books are available to Rice Library users in both print and electronic formats. They include discussions of classic literature, such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Frankenstein, rather typical literary pieces, but they also analyze more contemporary works as well. 

One volume which includes a discussion of contemporary works is entitled Technology and Humanity (REF PN56.T37T43).  As an example, one essay references the movie Tron and its sequel Tron Legacy as it examines the relationship between programs and programmers. This isn’t just about computers and robots; it’s also about how technology has changed over time. The volume entitled Dystopia (REF PN56.D94D97) contains a series of essays about works that deal with a future gone amuck, often focusing on a growing issue in contemporary life.  The Natureand Environment volume (REF PS169.E25N38)deals with how we feel about nature, and how nature has been used literature. It has essays on both poetry about nature and fictional accounts of man’s struggle with nature, or man’s interest in it. In The Heros Quest Heros Quest volume (REFPN56.5.H45H53) contributing authors investigate one of the great literary themes, in fact one of the earliest plots in literature. It often involves a hero traveling great distances to achieve amazing feats of heroism.

 

So take a look at the books, in print or online, and spend more time analyzing what you read every day. It will not only help you in class, but also in appreciating whatever entertainment you happen to enjoy.

 

CP