Certain books are great introductions to the year (and to the author). A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is one such. James Joyce is considered controversial and difficult--primarily for his great epic novels: Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, but this book shows his early efforts as a writer. We see glimpses of themes that Joyce develops with so much more pain-staking precision in his later works. It's a coming-of-age novel, a complete re-write/re-work of Stephen Hero (which was published posthumously in 1944). Oh, what a difference a major revision of a work makes!

In A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, we're introduced to Stephen Daedalus, who's the semi-autobiographical version of James Joyce, but also the boy who reached too high--an egotism that in Greek mythology is fated to end in that tragic fall. Still, here, we read: "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forget in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." We must move forward and embrace the experience of every day, even as that fall into experience might mean tragedy. Welcome life (and all that comes with it)! We've so much to look forward to in the world of readying :)

Cover Art © Oxford University Press.

It's 2011, and it couldn't have happened soon enough. In literature (and in life), 2010 was like most others--with ups and down, good and bad moments and memories. I hope that the good times have outnumbered the bad in 2010, and that books and reading will continue to be a huge part of your most memorable moments in the New Year!

As we take our first tentative steps into 2011, I love this feeling of excitement and anticipation. What books will I discover? Which authors will I meet upon a page? What inspiration will I find? And, how will my days and hours be shaped in my discoveries in literature?

W. Somerset Maugham wrote: "When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me."

We all need to read those lines in poems and novels--those expressions of the imagination that take our breathe away and leave us feeling more alive. Those lines become a part of us. And, we have to wonder: What could we accomplish; who would we become--if we allowed ourselves the pleasure of immersing ourselves in the gardens of reading?

In 1190, Judah ibn Tibbon, a famous Provençal Jew wrote in Hebrew to his son: "Avoid bad society: make thy books thy companions. Let thy bookcases and shelves be thy gardens and pleasure grounds. Pluck the fruit that grows therein; gather the roses, the spices, and the myrrh. If thy soul be satiate and weary, change from garden to garden, from furrow to furrow, from scene to scene. Then shall thy desire renew itself, and thy soul be rich with manifold delight."

Make a new beginning! I hope you'll be inspired to refocus on literary resolutions. Read, write and share literature--throughout 2011. Jump (or fall) into your garden of reading!

Graphic Art © Andres Harambour / iStockphoto.

As we venture into 2011, why not look at some of the fun writers in literature? They're all over, and they have such fascinating stories to tell (in their lives and their writings). So, here's just a taste...

Sexy, jazzy, and more than just a little bit troubled--women like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorthy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Edna Ferber made their marks on the world of literature in the 1920's. In Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin, Marion Meade follows the triumphs and failures, the romances and break-ups, along with all those bouts with depression and madness. What was the price for such talents as these--for women who ran wild in the 1920's? Read more about it: Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin!

This holiday season means something for all of us--wrapped as it is in memory and tradition. Is there a common thread--a literary hope and reality for the past, present and future?

Agnes Pahro said, "It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace."

In difficult times, we all need moments of reprieve and comfort. And, literature can offer that for each of us. 'Tis the season for love and happiness and joy. O. Henry's timeless story, The Gift of the Magi, offers a new vision of the holidays. What would happen if we each gave up our most cherished possession, if our actions demonstrated our love?

In literature, we find examples of love and sacrifice--moments of clarity. Families draw together; miracles happen; truths are revealed. Why can't we learn from literature? Imagine Jim and Della's Christmas, or the way Alcott's little women celebrated Christmas. In The Seven Poor Travellers, Charles Dickens writes: "Christmas comes but once a year,-which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place..."

Wherever you are this year... and whatever hardships you've endured, I hope you can find comfort on this day.

Some days/nights seem made for fireside reading, curled up in a comfortable spot. Most of us have so many books to catch up with--stacks or shelves of inviting volumes. Books tend to grow up around us, seep into every nook and cranny, spark our imaginations, and offer release and relief from hard times.

It's the twenty-third day of December. The Night Before Christmas ("A Visit from St. Nicholas") was first published in the Sentinel on this day in 1823. We also celebrate Festivas today. It's time for the Roman festival, Larentalia. Take a look at the reading selection for today.

"Somehow, not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.

"And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to you glad."
- John Greenleaf Whittier

Selected reading for this day:

• Behold, as Goblins Dark of Mien - Robert Louis Stevenson
• A Child's Christmas in Wales

Enjoy your reading this day! It's almost Christmas... What are your holiday reading traditions?

It's the twenty-first day of December. It's the Winter Solstice. And, we're days away from the day many of us celebrate Christmas.

I love the bare, white chill of winter. There's so much hidden, covered-up: stories to be uncovered and re-envisioned. Decipher the tales from the landscape, in the characters that live around you and buried the pages of the greatest literary classics. Andrew Wyeth wrote: "I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

Charles Dickens wrote: "Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these!"

Soren Kierkegaard wrote: "Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth."

And, of course, Quentin Crisp wrote: "There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings."

Here's selected reading for this day:

• Ceremonies for Christmas - Robert Herrick
• The Brave Tin Soldier - Hans Christian Andersen

What are you reading for this first day of winter? What will you do for your winter evenings?

The nights have been bitterly cold--frozen hands (Little Match Girl), frozen hearts (Snow Queen), and Hard Times (the Charles Dickens variety). Hans Christian Anderson writes: "It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast."

We are all searching for something: warmth, life's meaning, reprieve from what ails us (whether it's cancer, disease or a broken heart), and perhaps even what we call happiness. In the interplay of shadows and light, literature bring us brief glimpses of epiphany, truth, or enlightenment--in those moments of reflection. Henry Rollins once wrote: "If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you. " The writer must let the words flow forth; and we greedily accept. We must read--discover, learn and grow. What other way is there to live?

Henry Miller wrote: "I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul." For all that the coming days hold, may books hold much more splendor for you--warmth to comfort in hard times and solace to ease a broken heart. Capture night--hold it in palm of hand.

Virginia Woolf knew that a woman must have "a room of my own" to write fiction. The story of her life (and death) seems to substantiate her statement.

From her room, she drew on the many selves of her imagination to create lasting works like Mrs. Dalloway. Streams of life flow through the pages of this novel, as the characters recollect past loves and loss. There's a certain danger in being alive, in living every day as time takes its toll. But, it's also a gift. "Lolloping on the waves and braiding her tresses she seemed, having that gift still; to be; to exist; to sum it all up in the moment as she passed... But age had brushed her; even as a mermaid might behold in her glass the setting sun on some very clear evening over the waves."

In the novel, Woolf writes that: "She belonged to a different age, but being so entire, so complete, would always stand up on the horizon, stone-white, eminent, like a lighthouse marking some past stage on this adventurous, long, long voyage, this interminable --- this interminable life."

But, the most inevitable part of life is also death. The characters must face depression, illness, and the progression toward their own final end. "Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death."

As we near the end of the year, behold the glimmer of life in the glass of Woolf's words... What--in life--would you like to experience, through books?

Cover Art © HarperCollins.

It's the sixth day of December. It's St. Nicholas Day. The modern adaptation of the day is called KrampusNacht. Did you leave out your shoes? If so, what did you find: coins, candy... or perhaps it was coal? Take a look at the reading selection for today:

• St. Nicholas - Horatio Algers
• The Pine Tree - Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Anderson wrote: "I wonder if I am to sparkle like that!" cried the Tree, rejoicing. "That is still better than to go over the sea! How I do suffer for very longing! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and stretch out like the others that were carried off last year! Oh, if I were already on the cart! I wish I were in the warm room with all the splendor and brightness. And then? Yes; then will come something better, something still grander, or why should they dress me out so? There must come something better, something still grander, -- but what? Oh, how I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with me!"

What are you reading on this day?

It may now be the official first day, but it's been feeling like December for a while now! It's the first day of December. It's National Pie Day, Feast day of St Eligius, and the day that Barbes Diena is observed. December 1 is also Rosa Parks Day: the day that she ignited controversy by refusing to move to the back of the bus.

The day was also that date in 1830 that Victor Hugo was supposed to finish his famous novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He missed his deadline, and the novel wasn't published until 1831. He once wrote: "Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."

Whether you're wishing for the speedy completion of your writing project, the culmination of your literary studies, or wishing that you could get (or find time to read) a few more books--I hope all your wishes are granted.

Vachel Lindsay writes: "This section is a Christmas tree: / Loaded with pretty toys for you... / For every child a gift, I hope. / The doll upon the topmost bough / Is mine."

Read the reading selection for this December 1st.