Logos Bookstore’s Recommendations
By H. Harris Healy, III, President, Logos Bookstore
1575 York Avenue, (Between 83rd and 84th Sts.)
New York, NY 10028
(212) 517-7292, Fax (212) 517-7197
WWW.LOGOSBOOKSTORENYC.COM
A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur’s Court
By Mark Twain
(Penguin, $9, Signet Classics, $4.95)
The middle of winter is upon us, Valentine’s Day is coming soon and Logos has wonderful Valentine Day cards, and love related books from such authors as Stendhal, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Abelard to Cynthia Heimel among others, as well as related poetry by Ovid, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Browning, William Wordsworth and Shakespeare.
February is also Afro-American History Month and there is much to choose from in the way of books. Writings and biographies of W.E. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright and Martin Luther King are available. So are collections of poems by Nikki Giovanni, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Rita Dove, to name a few authors.
President’s Day also occurs this month and Logos has biographies of several Presidents including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Woodrow Wilson among others as well as books on the First
Ladies and Presidential Libraries.
A book to amuse you, horrify you and get you thinking is Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court. Right at the beginning the author meets a stranger who has weird tale to tell. Much is humorous, the adventures of this 19th century Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court: his saving himself by pretending to be responsible for an eclipse, his evening with Morgan Le Fay and his experience at the ogre’s castle among other incidents. This is particularly so because Twain has a good feel for the original stories as he puts the Yankee in the midst of these tales and then rewrites the stories to a totally, different, humorous, satiric endings. But the spirit of things changes. When the Yankee is dealing with the family with small pox, slavery and the end of Camelot, a sense of horror and gloom pervades. This book is well worth reading and shows a quite complex Mark Twain.
Upcoming Events At Logos
Monday, February 11, 2008 at 7 P.M., The Sacred Texts Group led by Richard Curtis will discuss The Gospel of Matthew.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 7 P.M., Sit-n-Knit will meet.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 7 P.M., KYTV Reading Group will discuss What Maisie Knew by Henry James.
Every Monday at 3 P.M. is Children’s Story Time with Lily Nass.
Transit: 4,5,6 Subways to Lexington Ave and 86th St., M86 Bus (86th St.) M79 (79th St.), M31 Bus (York Ave), M15 Bus (1st and 2nd Aves)#
