David Josef Volodzko Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

David Josef Volodzko

Finally, we have Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas," which created a lot of the Xmas lore we have today, and the lesser known poem that inspired it, "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight," which is the first mention of Santa's reindeer or that he arrives on Xmas Eve. https://t.co/DaElTTFYyq

David Josef Volodzko

L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wizard of Oz," also wrote "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus," about baby Claus being found, adopted by a wood nymph, growing to become the legend, fighting monsters with Chinese dragons on his side and finally, facing the Spirit of Death. https://t.co/SlOzVi4WUW

David Josef Volodzko

I was today years old when I learned Kevin Bacon’s dad Edmund was an urban planner who reshaped his hometown Philadelphia to such a degree he’s known today as “The Father of Modern Philadelphia.” His classic book Design of Cities tells me something more—he thought like an artist. https://t.co/0fAW2kbVl4

David Josef Volodzko

Today we lost Cormac McCarthy, whose greatest literary gift was the Judge in Blood Meridian, one of the best villains ever written alongside Milton's Satan and Shakespeare's Iago, with equally grand speeches and the godlike mind of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal. https://t.co/wxhuca51hB

David Josef Volodzko

Random theory but Stephen King's Needful Things was based on Mark Twain's The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg except King had the good sense to make the vaguely satanic protagonist more explicitly evil—in other words he improved on Twain.

Out of stock

David Josef Volodzko

The books include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

David Josef Volodzko

The idea that slavery provided the capital for the Industrial Revolution comes, I believe, from Eric Williams' 1944 classic "Capitalism and Slavery." Williams, the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, got his degree in modern history at Oxford. 2/ https://t.co/YaGit9GXOL

Out of stock

David Josef Volodzko

The books include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

David Josef Volodzko

Finally, we have Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas," which created a lot of the Xmas lore we have today, and the lesser known poem that inspired it, "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight," which is the first mention of Santa's reindeer or that he arrives on Xmas Eve. https://t.co/DaElTTFYyq

David Josef Volodzko

One day in class, Reed quoted a passage from a book that he said no one remembered anymore, or had ever heard about. Turns out I'd read the thing. Herman Melville's "Pierre, or the Ambiguities." Reed was impressed.