February 3, 2010
Washington, DC
“Yankee ranger, you’re cleared for takeoff” by tigerplish from Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerplish/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A featured speaker at the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s New Orleans Big Read of The Maltese Falcon, Dennis Lehane is the author of such noteworthy books as Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and The Given Day. Lehane had this to say about the pleasures of reading:
I read to travel—time travel, country travel, consciousness travel. This year, I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan (The Forever War), the Dust Bowl during the Depression (The Worst Hard Time), Sweden in the 1970s (The Terrorists), and North Carolina, again during the Depression (Serena.) So I’ve gotten around, met some people, lived some lives. And I didn’t have to pay for checked baggage. A great book is dangerous—it makes everything else in your life vanish.
People are talking about . . . The Big Read somewhere near you! Check The Big Read calendar to find out where you can join the discussion.
Tags: Dennis Lehane, Dennis Lehane quotes, New Orleans literature, Pirate's Alley Faulkner's Society, quotes by writers, The Big Read, The Maltese Falcon Big Read
The BIG READ sessions featuring Dennis Lehane during “Words & Music, a Literary Feast in New Orleans” in November, 2009, were among the most interest author events we have sponsored since The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society was founded in 1990. He is intelligent, witty, frequently combative in a humorous way, very engaging. We feel very fortunate to have been able to provide a forum for him in New Orleans.
Rosemary James, Co-Founder, Faulkner Society
nice one, i really like that quote a lot, you can learn anything from reading a few books and taking action!
Reading is a lot like golf and that’s why I enjoy them both. They take you away from the mundane, but require enough concentration and focus that you can escape your surroundings for a while.
Why Read? It’s a great way to escape to the make believe world. To match wits with master spies and crooks. To experience places you will probably never see in your lifetime. I could go on.