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Archive for November, 2009

Virginia Woolf: There’s an App for that

Posted in 21st century Woolf, books, Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, Night and Day, Orlando, Susan Sellers, The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf, Woolf online, tagged , , , , on Thursday 5 November 2009| Leave a Comment »

Being able to download Virginia Woolf novels to Apple’s sleek little iPod means we can now carry her words with us anywhere we go.  Because so far, I haven’t found a pocket that the gizmo — stocked with Woolf novels — doesn’t fit in.

Here’s my story. I bought an IPod touch a few weeks ago. Since then, I have spent way too much time searching for and downloading fun, interesting and useful iPod Apps.

I won’t bore you Woolfians with my love for the AP Stylebook App that set me back $29 but is worth every penny. Nor will I discuss the free Italian lessons I’m taking on my iPod or the Rachel Maddow shows I’m watching or the multiple Twitter accounts I’m following via TweetDeck.

But I will gladly tell you about the Apps I found that are related to Virginia:

  • The Virginia Woolf Collection – Nine of Woolf’s novels. Cost: $2.99
  • “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Study Guide and Quiz. Cost: 99 cents
  • Three versions of Night and Day at a cost of 99 cents each
  • Mrs. Dalloway. Cost: $17.99
  • Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers. Cost: $9.99
  • Orlando Study Guide and Quiz. Cost: 99 cents
  • To the Lighthouse Study Guide and Quiz. Cost: 99 cents

The best news is that if you want to get Woolf novels for free, and you have an iPod touch or an iPhone, you can. Here’s how:

  1. Download the free Kindle App for the iPod touch and the iPhone from the App Store.
  2. Visit Amazon.com’s Kindle store. Search for Virginia Wolf. Sort your search by price so you can easily spot the free downloads.
  3. Download The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room and Night and Day for free.
  4. Relax in the knowledge that no matter where you travel, you can always have Virginia in your pocket.

More of Woolf’s published work is available as Kindle e-books for under $2, including Monday and Tuesday and The Early Works of Virginia Woolf.

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What book changed your life?

Posted in books, Orlando, tagged , , , on Wednesday 4 November 2009| 11 Comments »

In a recent interview, writer Jeanette Winterson was asked, “What book changed your life?”

Here is her answer: “The Bible shaped me; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando shaped my imagination; and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities gave me the courage to write whatever I wanted.”

I posed the same question to myself just moments ago and felt hard-pressed to come up with an answer. I guess I’ll have to swish it around in my mind for awhile.

Meanwhile, I pose the question to you: “What book changed your life?”

Please post your answers in the comments section below.

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Woolf’s Lighthouse on list of 40 personal classics

Posted in books, The Waves, To the Lighthouse, tagged , , , on Tuesday 3 November 2009| 1 Comment »

Susan Hill had a mountain of books inside her Gloucestershire farmhouse that she had never made time to read. So she spent a year reading nothing but the unread books that filled her shelves.

The result is Howards End Is On the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home, published in August by Profile Books. Included in the book is a list of 40 titles that “I think I could manage with alone, for the rest of my life,” Hill said.

Among them is one by Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse.

Hill said she chose Lighthouse rather than The Waves, because the latter “always reminds me of the sort of highbrow radio play they used to broadcast on Radio 3.”

A review of Hill’s book in The Guardian calls the book “a mind-map of a novelist in her late 60s who has spent her life reading and writing books.”

Read the introduction to Hill’s book.

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