The Story of Charlotte's Web...Redux

"Where's Papa going with that axe?"

That has got to be the greatest opening line ever! In case you don't recognize it, it is the first sentence in Charlotte's Web by 
E. B. White. It brings a tear to my eye to this day as I know what is coming.

In honor of today being the thirty-year anniversary of Mr. White's death, I am re-running a post below from a couple of years ago in which I encourage you to read Michael Sims's fond look at the early life of Mr. White and his writing of CW. 

I was thrilled to met Michael Sims, the author of The Story of Charlotte's Web, and hear his tale of doing research for the book. He visited the farm in Maine where Mr. White wrote about Charlotte and her word-filled web. My autographed copy holds a treasured place on the bookshelf.

Also, these two links (here and here) will take you to other posts I have written about Mr. White who is one of my favorite authors and whose writing has taught me so much.

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March 11, 2012

Read this book...

Read This Book...if you know nothing of writer E.B. White and the place he holds in literary history.

Read This Book...if you have ever read Charlotte's Web and fallen in love with the tale of the spider and the pig.

Read This Book...if you want to be a writer, or a better writer, for the examples of clarity and conciseness found in White's words and to experience his agony and angst in order to produce such fine writing.

Read This Book...if you hate spiders and want to find out how fascinating they can be and how White himself relished researching their habits in order to give Charlotte as many true characteristics as possible - down to writing words with her web.

Read This Book...if you want to be drawn into the world of E.B.White - his childhood at the turn of the 20th century, his work at The New Yorker, his loving relationship with his wife Katherine White, his love of the natural world and the barnyard animals that inhabited his farm, and his dedication to his life of words.

In short: Read This Book.

In Which Michael Sims takes a look at Henry David Thoreau

 Henry David Thoreau

(1854)

by Samuel Worcester Rowse

My book of the year for 2012 was The Story of Charlotte's Web: E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims. I wrote about it here. 

I have a signed copy of the book as Mr. Sims made a stop on his book tour that year at an independent bookstore here. He was delightful to listen to as he told his tale of visiting White's farm in Maine and actually seeing the barn where Charlotte was first imagined. 

So imagine my glee to find that Mr. Sims now has written a book about Henry David Thoreau. The Adventures of Henry Thoreau: A Young Man's Unlikely Path to Walden Pond.

Just as he took a look at White's life growing up and events that inspired Charlotte's Web, Mr. Sims focuses on Thoreau's life before he became famous for his journals of life at Walden Pond. 

I have checked Mr. Sims's website in hopes that he will be traveling through my city for this book but so far no events have been planned. I will keep my fingers crossed. 

Celebrate E.B. White's Birthday!

E.B. White
1899-1985

Happy Birthday to E.B. White who was born this day in 1899. Mr. White was a contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine for 60 years. He also revised and edited William Strunk Jr.'s handy book on English grammar, The Elements of Style. 

Mr. White is most beloved for his story of the friendship between a pig and a spider - Charlotte's Web. He wrote Stuart Little, the story of a mouse born to human parents, and The Trumpet of the Swan.

I love Mr. White for his essays collected in One Man's Meat, The Second Tree From the Corner, The Points of My Compass, all of which sit on my bookshelves along with a piece he wrote for Holiday magazine, Here is New York. It was published as a book in 1949. 

If you haven't already read The Story of Charlotte's Web (2011) by Michael Sims, I urge you to do so. The title is misleading. The book is really an affectionate biography of Mr. White's life up until Charlotte's Web was published and how his life influenced his writings. It is superb. 

So here's to you Elwyn Brooks White and thank you for providing me and many others with so many hours of reading pleasure.

Read This Book...

Read This Book...if you know nothing of writer E.B. White and the place he holds in literary history.

Read This Book...if you have ever read Charlotte's Web and fallen in love with the tale of the spider and the pig.

Read This Book...if you want to be a writer, or a better writer, for the examples of clarity and conciseness found in White's words and to experience his agony and angst in order to produce such fine writing.

Read This Book...if you hate spiders and want to find out how fascinating they can be and how White himself relished researching their habits in order to give Charlotte as many true characteristics as possible - down to writing words with her web.

Read This Book...if you want to be drawn into the world of E.B.White - his childhood at the turn of the 20th century, his work at The New Yorker, his loving relationship with his wife Katherine White, his love of the natural world and the barnyard animals that inhabited his farm, and his dedication to his life of words.

In short: Read This Book.

March Blows in with a pig and a spider

I actually finished Living Alone at quarter to midnight last night so technically it is a book I read in February but I will start out March with it as Book One finished.

The book is strange and brief. I almost got the feeling that Benson had started a notebook and just jotted down scenes...in the woods, committee members' meetings, characterizations, war...and then created a story to string all them together. There is a witch and her broomstick (I have already forgotten its name), a wizard, magic packets of Happiness, an almost invisible person whose life is changed from meeting the witch, her dog named David, fairies, a dragon, dead people, a ferryman, and a too-too upper class woman.

I got carried away trying to make sense of the plot (of which there was not much) and forgot to let myself be enchanted by Benson's writing. It may be that I need to re-read it slowly now that I know that really nothing and everything is going to happen.

My favorite witch book is Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.

I also started a mystery by a new (to me) writer Katherine Hall Page titled The Body in the Belfry. Has anyone else read her Faith Fairchild mysteries? Chapter One grabbed my attention with its humor and solid writing. We will have to see where it takes me.

And as promised, I started reading my autographed copy of The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims.

"Where's Papa going with that axe?"