The Majesty of the Great Plains

"There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating, I knew, because often our wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow and lurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven, all there was of it."

-- the character named Jim Burden recalls what it was like when, still a boy, he moved from Virginia to the plains of Nebraska in Willa Sibert Cather's novel My Antonia. How great is that?

Source: Willa Sibert Cather, My Antonia (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918), 8.

Get "Gilead"

I mentioned a few months ago that in 2007 I planned to read, among other books, Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead.

Well, I'm reading it. And I have to tell you, it's so rich and smooth and fine; like the best cup of coffee (or tea, or hot chocolate) you ever had. If you have a stack of books on your night stand, get a copy of Gilead and place it there. It will sweeten your sleep and enliven your dreams.

I especially like what Michael Dirda of "The Washington Post" said: This book "is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it."

You can read all of Dirda's review here.