catapult magazine

vol. 12, num. 15 :: 2013.07.19 — 2013.09.05

Many of us could tell our life stories specifically through the lens of books we’ve read. Instead of doing a summer issue on beach reads, which certainly have their place, we’re going to kick off our annual August publishing break with reflections on the books that have changed our lives in some way, whether fiction or non-fiction, poetry or reference, fantastical or biographical.

Feature

Beware of book lust

by Marci Frederick

Reflecting on the ways books demand our lives.

Editorial

Facts and fictions

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

On following the breadcrumbs of truth through the stories of childhood.

Articles

Come further in, come further up!

by Kacie Rogers

C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia offer a glimpse of the world to come.

A book that bites

by Emma Elliot Freire

When a book about vampires overlaps with real life.

Humbled by Frankenstein

by Robert Evenhouse

On being brought to life by Mary Shelley’s gothic tale.

Not the words, but the voice

by Jonathan Huang

On the permeable boundary between a Chaim Potok novel and a summer internship.

Breath of life

by Jim Schmotzer

From evangelical tell-alls to baseball biographies, some books that have stuck.

In case you missed it the first time

Some books bite. Good books leave scars.

by Marcus Goodyear

A shameless fanboy's reflection on books that help us believe.

Life on the threshold

by Christopher Smith

The nature poetry of Liberty Hyde Bailey and the igniting of an urban imagination.

The book that changed my life

by Name withheld

A confession about the power of the written word.

Weaving the web

Open your eyes wide: The generous vision of Marilynne Robinson

The Other Journal

Rebecca Martin reviews Robinson’s 2012 book of essays, When I was a Child, I Read Books.

Vonnegut on censorship and demonization

Burnside Writers Collective

Larry Shallenberger on a letter that speaks to today’s culture wars in literature.

daily asterisk

Even in a country you know by heart
its hard to go the same way twice
the life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident. To get back before dark
is the art of going.

Wendell Berry
“Traveling at Home” from Traveling at Home

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