A hello to whoever

Well, for a first post I thought I might describe what I envisioned when I created this blog.

First, I envision few, if any hits or followers.  It's more of another place to jot down thoughts and ideas spurred on by what I'm reading, though film and music may also come into play.

Second, as suggested above, it's primarily a place to write about what I read, and would ideally become a place where the books and ideas triggered by them can be commented on and discussed in a positive way.  It's not a forum to argue, though any negative comments are encouraged as long as they are respectful and constructive.

Now, as far as the reading material goes, it is very eclectic.  I do not mean that it's random as I see a common thread running through it all, and that is that I view books as a vital part of understanding the world.  The posts will include works within many genres of fiction, history and politics, philosophy, poetry, current events...essentially the entire gamut of what pen has put to paper.


As this is incredibly broad, I'll include a short list of my favourite (right, with an ou...I'm Canadian!) writers as a point of reference for the types of books that I'll cover, just simply divided into fiction and non-fiction.  I don't mean to say I agree with them entirely, and in some cases, even partially, but they all had an impact on how I think things through.  In no particular order:

Fiction:
James Joyce
Henry Miller
Franz Kafka
Arthur Rimbaud
Roberto Bolano

Non-fiction:
Martin Heidegger
Karl Marx
Georges Bataille
Friedrich Nietzsche
Lev Shestov

Now, the above list may seem utterly pretentious and it's really unavoidable as I don't want anyone who may stumble on this to feel I'll ever be writing anything about the latest book in the Twilight saga!

Anyway, I'll update as I read and think, so it will be sporadic.  However, at least this is a start.