The Weekly Wrap: December 21-27

December 27, 2025December 26, 2025 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

boy in brown and white plaid hoodie shirt sitting beside a christmas tree holding a stack of books — Photo by Elina Fairytale on Pexels.com

The Weekly Wrap: December 21-27

Reading Realities

“When evening comes, I return to my home, and I go into my study; and on the thresh-hold, I take off my everyday clothes, which are covered in mud and mire, and I put on regal and curial robes; and dressed in a more appropriate manner I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born; and there I am not ashamed to speak to them, to ask them the reasons for their actions; and they, in their humanity, answer me; and for four hours I feel no boredom,I dismiss every affliction, I no longer fear poverty nor do I tremble at the thought of death; I become completely part of them.”

― Niccolò Machiavelli

I came across this quote by Macchiavelli this week, describing the ideal, even transcendent, experience every reader hopes for. Maybe you have to live in a different century. But my reading experience is rarely the exalted experience of Machiavelli’s

Most often, it is like this. I sit down to read, mug of coffee at my right hand. I read a few pages and my dentist office calls-an automated message reminding me of my dental appointment next month. So, I recover the train of what I’m reading, get another sip of coffee and read a few more pages–good interesting stuff. Then my mind wanders to a conversation with a friend where something like this came up.

Realizing that my mind has been somewhere else while my eyes were scanning the lines, I back up to the point where I hopped on a rabbit trail. After reading a bit more, I notice my mind wandering somewhere else–to my bladder. The inevitable consequence of that coffee. After addressing that bodily need, I come back to my book and read another ten pages, feeling like I’m getting in the flow. Then I hear the mail truck…with a shipment of books I’ve been awaiting.

Am I the only one for whom this is true? And this is only a sampling. I haven’t even gotten to dozing off, or having a limb “fall asleep” or a myriad of other interruptions like clothes in the dryer that need to be hung up, a drain clog, or those annoying pre-registration texts from all our doctors. Maybe Machiavelli had household servants to take care of stuff like this. I don’t.

I’ve stopped dreaming of four hours without boredom in the company of great minds. An interesting new thought or an intriguing plot turn is enough. Reading doesn’t fail me. And as for the rest? It keeps me grounded in life beyond the book.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Saul Bellow was one of the authors my mother enjoyed. When I started reading him, I discovered an intelligent mind with incredible reach who created memorable characters. Tyson Duffy recalls “The Manifold Mind of Saul Bellow.”

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first son asked him about Father Christmas at age three. For the next twenty-three years, his children received an annual letter from Father Christmas, in which Tolkien created yet another imaginary world. Jake Rossen describes “When J.R.R. Tolkien Posed as ‘Father Christmas’ for 23 Years.”

Last week I posted the most popular stories from Literary Hub. This week, the editors of Literary Hub posted “Our Favorite Lit Hub Stories From 2025.” Ten more great articles selected from this year’s output.

I’m always surprised by the writers who win big awards I’ve never heard of. For example, Rabih Alameddine won this year’s National Book Award. Lily Meyer profiles him in “The Writer Fueled by Life’s Randomness.”

Finally, what do Betty Boop, The Maltese Falcon, The Little Engine That Could, and The Murder at the Vicarage all have in common? All of them will pass into the public domain on New Year’s Day! Learn what else is passing into the public domain in “The cultural works becoming public domain in 2026, from Betty Boop to Nancy Drew.”

Quote of the Week

Poet Thomas Gray was born December 26, 1716. You may have heard a version of this but never knew who said it:

“Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.”

Miscellaneous Musings

My Christmas book haul began on Christmas Eve. Just when we were headed to church, we spotted the box on our doorstep that contained Beth Macy’s Paper Girl. An Ohio native, the book is her narrative of growing up in nearby Urbana, Ohio.

Christmas Day brought four more from my son and his wife. Two were on my wish list: Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket and Robert McFarlane’s Is A River Alive. They also came up with two others, one a mystery and one sci fi. All of them look like good reading!

I’ll be posting my 2026 Reading Challenge next week. One preview–I’ve decided to limit myself to five challenges for the year. I’m keeping it real with challenges I intend to pursue personally to enrich my own reading life.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: William Kent Krueger, Manitou Canyon

Tuesday: Louis Markos, Passing the Torch

Wednesday: Bob on Books 2026 Reading Challenge

Thursday: The Month in Reviews: December 2025

Friday: David W. Opderbeck, Faithful Exchange

And as a preview to future attractions, I will be reviewing the first Jane Austen novel I’ve read the following Monday, Sense and Sensibility.

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for December 21-27.

My best wishes to you all for your New Year’s celebrations. Stay safe!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Arts & Letters Daily

September 22, 2017September 22, 2017 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Screen capture of part of Arts & Letters Daily main page, as accessed on September 21, 2017

One of the things I love doing is helping connect people with books that will inform, entertain, and perhaps transform them. One of the ways I do that is through various newsletters and websites that alert me to new books as well as information about the literary world, authors, book selling, and all things related to books. At the same time, I realize that this blog can’t be a “one stop shop,” and so I also like to pass along the resources I’ve found useful in discovering news about books and all things literary.

One of my readers recently commented with regard to a post about one such site, “One more alternative to actually reading books??” His question raises a fair point. I really could spend all my time reading what is on these sites rather than reading books. But I think most of us have figured out how to skim them to discover what catches our attention. Sometimes, they inform me about books I decide I don’t need to read. Sometimes they pique my interest in something I want to read and review. And I think you will admit that I read and review a few books (over 100 so far this year).

That’s a long introduction to a site I discovered recently, Arts & Letters Daily, published by the folks who put out The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is the Wall Street Journal of the academic world. That should tip you off that you will find a high standard of writing in the articles aggregated on this website. Unlike The Chronicle, all content is available without subscribing, although there is a link in several places to “Support Arts & Letters Daily”

Like Literary Hub, this site curates articles on books and the literary and publishing world from all over the internet. It does so under three categories:

Articles of Note: Currently (September 21, 2017), the top articles on the page are on Hemingway in LA (from the LA Times), hallucinogenic fungi (from hyperallergic.com), and Kingsley Amis at 70 (from The Guardian).
New Books: The first three articles in this column currently are a review of a book on what writers wear from The Times Literary Supplement, a review of Why Poetry? from the Washington Post, and a book on the evolution of beauty reviewed in The New York Times.
Essays & Opinions: Currently the first three are an article on Evelyn Waugh’s Catholicism from First Things, an article in The Jacobin on James Burnham’s journey from Trotskyite to conservative editor, and a London Review of Books review article by Pankraj Mishra on a collection of books exploring the future of liberalism in the age of Trump and Brexit.

The site is much less flashy than Literary Hub, being organized around three columns of articles under the three categories listed above. It adds no images to the article summaries and so allows for a great deal of content in a small online space.

The other feature of the site is the column of links on the left hand side of the page. From top to bottom following a box allowing you to subscribe to a weekly email newsletter, these are grouped under “Nota Bene” (a collection of miscellaneous articles), “The ALD Archives,” “Newspapers” (26 newspapers from around the world), “Breaking” (links to breaking news on various media outlets), “Magazines” (a long list), and “Book Reviews” (another long list of links). One fun feature under “Archives” is a “Random” link which randomly selects an article in the archives to show you.

Essentially, this is a portal into the literary world. I like the simple organization without the distraction of visual images that links you to content that appears of interest. The alphabetical lists of links to magazines and literary reviews is handy to have in one place.

As noted above, Arts & Letters Daily also sends a weekly email of its “Top Reads” each Friday. Here is a screen capture of the web-version of the September 15, 2017 newsletter:

Discovering “Literary Hub”

September 8, 2016September 7, 2016 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

literary-hub-the-best-of-the-literary-internet

Screenshot of Literary Hub from September 7, 2016 (without feature banner)

I discovered Literary Hub yesterday when I wrote about Mario Vargas Llosa’s new book, Notes on the Death of a Culture. I’ve had lots of fun looking around the website, which Literary Hub describes the purpose of as follows:

Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life. There is more great literary content online than ever before, but it is scattered, easily lost—with the help of its editorial partners, Lit Hub is a site readers can rely on for smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books. Each day—alongside original content and exclusive excerpts—Literary Hub is proud to showcase an editorial feature from one of its many partners from across the literary spectrum: publishers big and small, journals, bookstores, and non-profits.

Following this description is an impressive list of partners including a number of major publishers, booksellers, and review journals. One could probably spend an enjoyable evening just clicking through the links of all the partners!

The home page is topped by a graphic banner highlighting current top literary stories on the site. Presently these include “Writing a Novel Limited to the 483 Words Spoken to Ophelia,” “How a Self-Published Writer of Gay Erotica Beat Sci-fi’s Sad Puppies at Their Own Game,” “Death is Actually Very Funny: A Last Conversation with Max Ritvo,” “Mario Vargas Llosa: How Global Entertainment Killed Culture” (from which yesterday’s post was inspired), and “On Writing, Parenthood and Trying to Stay a Little Wild.” Probably something there will grab your attention, if not all.

In the left column, you can click on excerpts of recently released books, a good way to sample before you buy. The center column highlights a few other feature stories. The right column highlights “Lit Hub Daily”, featuring on September 7:

Harold Bloom on Alvin Feinman, a “poet of astonishing individuation.”
On White Noise and college move-in day.
Tommy Pico on his debut book.
Why the man behind “Born to Run” is also “a born memoirist.”

Across the top of the page, you also have a menu which duplicates some of these items. From left to right you have:

Bookmarks: Clicking this takes you to visual representations of bookcovers of current books with a bookmark containing a “grade” based on an “average” of at least three reviews. Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth received an A+. On the other hand Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am only rated a C+. You can click on the cover to go to a page that includes relevant excerpts of reviews with a link to the full review. Highlighted are new books, most reviewed books and best reviewed. You may also search a number of categories of books listed on the right side of the page.
Features: This includes a fuller list of featured articles. Since I’ve spent some time interviewing booksellers, I liked “Interview with a Bookstore: Carmichael’s Books.”
Excerpts: Similar to “Features”, this expands the list of excerpts from books from the few highlighted on the home page. Good feature. I read one from a book with an intriguing title. Decided the title was more intriguing than the excerpt.
Bookshelf includes the covers of books mentioned in articles in Literary Hub. Clicking on the cover will take you to the article. Mousing over it shows you a box telling you what article or articles the book is mentioned in. These include everything from new books to classics like Ivan Illych.
Lit Hub Daily is collection of the best of the literary internet collected daily. This one sounded interesting:
- Why the man behind “Born to Run” is also “a born memoirist.” Dave Kamp profiles Bruce Springsteen ahead of his 500-page memoir. | Vanity Fair
The last is the already mentioned About page. In addition to the glorious collection of links to publishers, booksellers, and review journals is a link at the bottom to the “masthead” for Literary Hub.

While of course I hope that for those reading this that Bob on Books will be a kind of “literary hub,” I have to admit that I appreciated the quality of writing, the variety of features, and the breadth of content from across the literary landscape brought together on Literary Hub. I’ve bookmarked it and look forward to returning. Now, if they can just get an app for that…