Kathleen Constantine's Blog
July 7, 2021
Summertime
The spirit of summer. Not easy to capture in these tough times, but I found it waiting for me in Dandelion Wine, a book I love so much I couldn't resist posting my review here: Summertime
January 15, 2021
Domestic Terrorism
I’ve posted some lines from literature on my website, brought to mind by the recent news. The minute I saw video of the US Capitol on January 6, I thought of the last quote, from a famous story that many of us remember being shocked by in school. Four Quote Friday - Domestic Terrorism
May 28, 2020
Plague
Strange how the lens we see through at any given time alters our perception. I seem to find plague references everywhere right now, so I've posted a few quotes on my website. This is the third of a Coronavirus series (the first two were poems--just thoughts to capture this crazy time we are living through).
They can all be found here:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/rever...
They can all be found here:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/rever...
February 10, 2020
Dreaming
“I am not interested in your happiness. I’m not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be … I’d like to substitute something else for its search … I want to talk about dreaming.”
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison contains so much truth and wisdom that it’s almost unbearable to consume it in one volume.
What I read today, Morrison's commencement address to the Sarah Lawrence class of 1988, should be required reading. I wanted to shout it from a mountaintop, so thought at the very least I could post about it here.
Oh, how I wish I heard this voice speaking to us now; how I wish this was a political platform; how I wish this viewpoint could be seen in every conversation about the critical issues we currently face.
Morrison doesn't just tell us to dream. She tells us how, and also why it is crucial.
“Dream the world as it ought to be … Imagine, envision what it would be like to know that your comfort, your fun, your safety are not based on the deprivation of another. It’s possible. But not if we are committed to outmoded paradigms, to moribund thinking that has not been preceded or dappled by dreaming. It is possible, and now it is necessary. Necessary because if you do not feed the hungry, they will eat you, and the manner of their eating is as varied as it is fierce.”
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison contains so much truth and wisdom that it’s almost unbearable to consume it in one volume.
What I read today, Morrison's commencement address to the Sarah Lawrence class of 1988, should be required reading. I wanted to shout it from a mountaintop, so thought at the very least I could post about it here.
Oh, how I wish I heard this voice speaking to us now; how I wish this was a political platform; how I wish this viewpoint could be seen in every conversation about the critical issues we currently face.
Morrison doesn't just tell us to dream. She tells us how, and also why it is crucial.
“Dream the world as it ought to be … Imagine, envision what it would be like to know that your comfort, your fun, your safety are not based on the deprivation of another. It’s possible. But not if we are committed to outmoded paradigms, to moribund thinking that has not been preceded or dappled by dreaming. It is possible, and now it is necessary. Necessary because if you do not feed the hungry, they will eat you, and the manner of their eating is as varied as it is fierce.”
July 13, 2018
Comings and Goings
The summer travel season and current events converge in thoughts about comings and goings. I’ve compiled some related quotes today for "Four Quote Friday" on my website: Four Quote Friday - Comings and Goings
June 7, 2018
The Gift of Books
Two website updates today: adding the text of some previously published writings here:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/writi...
and a new blog post about Mom and Dad and books, below and here:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
The Gift of Books
With Mother’s Day passed, and Father’s Day still ahead, I’d like to take this time in between to remember my parents and thank them for something very specific they did for me: they provided books. Lots and lots of books. What my life would have been like if they didn’t do this, I do not want to imagine.
In our house, we had dime store novels, mysteries, classics and poetry collections. Will Durant’s complete The Story of Civilization took up an entire bookcase. Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series--my father’s favorite—lined several shelves with their tan, textured hardback covers. My mother liked science books and atlases. We had an amazing boxed set of pamphlets that explained scientific concepts to children, and another containing facts about and photographs of far-away lands.
A huge dictionary sat near the dining room table, and my mother was known to heave it off the shelf and onto her lap during dinner when there were differing opinions about the meaning or origin of a word.
They told us stories, read us stories and gave us stories. We read books in bed and while eating breakfast cereal. We read books in the car and in motel rooms. We read books in trees, even on swings.
The beautiful thing to me is my parents were not scholars. They weren’t teachers or librarians. They were simple people who just loved to learn. They demonstrated that love to their children, and gave us the tools to carry it on ourselves. Other than love, shelter and sustenance, I can’t think of a more important gift.
Thank you Mom and Dad.
https://kathleenconstantine.com/writi...
and a new blog post about Mom and Dad and books, below and here:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
The Gift of Books
With Mother’s Day passed, and Father’s Day still ahead, I’d like to take this time in between to remember my parents and thank them for something very specific they did for me: they provided books. Lots and lots of books. What my life would have been like if they didn’t do this, I do not want to imagine.
In our house, we had dime store novels, mysteries, classics and poetry collections. Will Durant’s complete The Story of Civilization took up an entire bookcase. Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series--my father’s favorite—lined several shelves with their tan, textured hardback covers. My mother liked science books and atlases. We had an amazing boxed set of pamphlets that explained scientific concepts to children, and another containing facts about and photographs of far-away lands.
A huge dictionary sat near the dining room table, and my mother was known to heave it off the shelf and onto her lap during dinner when there were differing opinions about the meaning or origin of a word.
They told us stories, read us stories and gave us stories. We read books in bed and while eating breakfast cereal. We read books in the car and in motel rooms. We read books in trees, even on swings.
The beautiful thing to me is my parents were not scholars. They weren’t teachers or librarians. They were simple people who just loved to learn. They demonstrated that love to their children, and gave us the tools to carry it on ourselves. Other than love, shelter and sustenance, I can’t think of a more important gift.
Thank you Mom and Dad.
March 21, 2018
A Little Women's History Reading
A little about some of my favorite Women's History Month reads can be found below or on my website at: https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
It’s Women’s History Month, and I want to share a few of the amazing books by and about women that I’ve read recently. I’ve included two classics of women’s literature and three that are a little outside the box, and added a few words about each taken from my Goodreads reviews. All provide insight, inspiration, and a good dose of fun (not unlike time spent with “the girls” in real life!)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, 1929
In this lecture to aspiring women writers, Virginia Woolf walks us through the history of why prior centuries produced so few books by women, and explains why “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” It speaks to a much broader audience though. Don’t most of us long for a creative life, but find it too frequently out of reach? This book provides fuel for the challenge.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792
A long and sometimes repetitive 18th century text, but the ideas—shocking and highly controversial in their time– are simple:
woman = human
education should be the same for everyone
when you oppress women, bad things happen
if you treat people equally, good things will happen
Of course this applies to all human rights. The argument in favor is simple: equality, inclusion, acceptance, appreciation. What is complex, and what this book helps us study, is the engine of oppression: who starts it, what makes it run, and most importantly, how we might speed up the unbearably slow process of stopping it.
Living My Life by Emma Goldman, 1931
This famous anarchist’s two-part, thousand page tome of a memoir is actually immensely readable. It’s full of history, adventure, unusual personalities, romances and life and death suspense. The writing is excellent. One of the things I most admire is the matter-of-fact tone she uses, whether relaying her accomplishments or her mistakes. She often writes of working “for my ideal.” It struck me that hers was a positive rather than negative stance. We often fight against things, but how often do we fight for something, let alone for our ideal? What might we accomplish if we did?
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole, 1857
Mary Seacole was a wonder; a heroine and larger-than-life character, but at the same time she reminds me of my own very simple, down-to-earth ancestors. Her mother was a Jamaican healer, and her father a Scottish soldier, and it seems she inherited both drives and put them to amazing use. She travelled from Jamaica to Panama and cured cholera patients. When the Crimean War broke out she longed to be a war nurse, but was turned down so she went on her own. I’m not kidding. She hopped a military transport ship to Balaclava, where she attended to soldiers the way she did everything—on her own terms. This book deserves to be better known.
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, 1982
A very emotional read, this one hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. It is a novel made up of the stories of seven very different women connected by a particular place–a housing development called Brewster Place. Naylor’s writing is stellar, and powerful. A variety of perspectives are explored, but all of the stories tell something so true that it’s shocking. You may think you know what’s going to happen, and maybe you do, but after you read it you know how what happens makes a person feel. That’s the part you don’t know, unless you do know, and then you’ll know how true it is.
I’ll stop with those for now, but I look forward to finding other excuses to recommend women’s stories, any month of the year.
It’s Women’s History Month, and I want to share a few of the amazing books by and about women that I’ve read recently. I’ve included two classics of women’s literature and three that are a little outside the box, and added a few words about each taken from my Goodreads reviews. All provide insight, inspiration, and a good dose of fun (not unlike time spent with “the girls” in real life!)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, 1929
In this lecture to aspiring women writers, Virginia Woolf walks us through the history of why prior centuries produced so few books by women, and explains why “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” It speaks to a much broader audience though. Don’t most of us long for a creative life, but find it too frequently out of reach? This book provides fuel for the challenge.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792
A long and sometimes repetitive 18th century text, but the ideas—shocking and highly controversial in their time– are simple:
woman = human
education should be the same for everyone
when you oppress women, bad things happen
if you treat people equally, good things will happen
Of course this applies to all human rights. The argument in favor is simple: equality, inclusion, acceptance, appreciation. What is complex, and what this book helps us study, is the engine of oppression: who starts it, what makes it run, and most importantly, how we might speed up the unbearably slow process of stopping it.
Living My Life by Emma Goldman, 1931
This famous anarchist’s two-part, thousand page tome of a memoir is actually immensely readable. It’s full of history, adventure, unusual personalities, romances and life and death suspense. The writing is excellent. One of the things I most admire is the matter-of-fact tone she uses, whether relaying her accomplishments or her mistakes. She often writes of working “for my ideal.” It struck me that hers was a positive rather than negative stance. We often fight against things, but how often do we fight for something, let alone for our ideal? What might we accomplish if we did?
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole, 1857
Mary Seacole was a wonder; a heroine and larger-than-life character, but at the same time she reminds me of my own very simple, down-to-earth ancestors. Her mother was a Jamaican healer, and her father a Scottish soldier, and it seems she inherited both drives and put them to amazing use. She travelled from Jamaica to Panama and cured cholera patients. When the Crimean War broke out she longed to be a war nurse, but was turned down so she went on her own. I’m not kidding. She hopped a military transport ship to Balaclava, where she attended to soldiers the way she did everything—on her own terms. This book deserves to be better known.
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, 1982
A very emotional read, this one hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. It is a novel made up of the stories of seven very different women connected by a particular place–a housing development called Brewster Place. Naylor’s writing is stellar, and powerful. A variety of perspectives are explored, but all of the stories tell something so true that it’s shocking. You may think you know what’s going to happen, and maybe you do, but after you read it you know how what happens makes a person feel. That’s the part you don’t know, unless you do know, and then you’ll know how true it is.
I’ll stop with those for now, but I look forward to finding other excuses to recommend women’s stories, any month of the year.
February 16, 2018
Hearts and Flowers
It’s Four Quote Friday on my website. Never too late for a little romance …
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
January 23, 2018
A Poe-Inspired Poem
I’ve been reading Edgar Allan Poe: Poems and Poetics, experiencing much of his poetry for the first time, and enjoying the essays and excerpts of his non-fiction writing included in this collection. I posted a poem on my website--just some lines that came to me while I was contemplating his ideas:
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/...
January 1, 2018
Happy New Year
Since I have the opportunity to have this Goodreads blog, I’ve decided to take advantage of it!
I had the good fortune of sneaking into Goodreads as an author, due to Vine Leaves Literary Journal including a short piece I wrote in one of their “Best of” volumes. I am forever grateful to Vine Leaves Press, for that honor, and for introducing me to Goodreads. I may have come as an author but I’ve participated as a reader, and love this limitless library without walls, where I keep bumping into fascinating people I’d never meet otherwise, people who love reading as much as I do.
Someday I hope to finish and publish my novel, but until then, I’ll post here once in a while, when I have something new on my website, or am particularly excited about the books I’ve read. Today I posted a little note about New Year’s and how I’ve been reading more than writing: https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/....
I truly appreciate you reading this. More importantly though, I’m glad you’re out there reading whatever you read, keeping this world of words healthy and vibrant. Thank you!
I had the good fortune of sneaking into Goodreads as an author, due to Vine Leaves Literary Journal including a short piece I wrote in one of their “Best of” volumes. I am forever grateful to Vine Leaves Press, for that honor, and for introducing me to Goodreads. I may have come as an author but I’ve participated as a reader, and love this limitless library without walls, where I keep bumping into fascinating people I’d never meet otherwise, people who love reading as much as I do.
Someday I hope to finish and publish my novel, but until then, I’ll post here once in a while, when I have something new on my website, or am particularly excited about the books I’ve read. Today I posted a little note about New Year’s and how I’ve been reading more than writing: https://kathleenconstantine.com/2018/....
I truly appreciate you reading this. More importantly though, I’m glad you’re out there reading whatever you read, keeping this world of words healthy and vibrant. Thank you!
