In a moment of intense holiday-shopping fail (combined with December over-scheduling dilemmas), I announced, "FINE. Everyone who is impossible to shop for is getting a damn book ( Read more... )

"The thing that unites us is that all four of us are homebody claustrophobes who prefer to be alone and are suspicious of other people. So the trait that binds us together as a family--preferring to keep to ourselves--makes it difficult to be together as a family. Paradoxically, it's at these times that I feel closest to them, that I understand ( Read more... )

Okay, fine. I checked out "Practically Perfect in Every Way" so I could make fun of self-help books, and if I'm being really honest I also checked it out hoping to make fun of the author. I only wanted to make fun of the author because I had her confused with someone who I'd met in passing a couple of times back in the People's Republic (and couldn ( Read more... )

I'm trying to avoid one of my least favorite committee service jobs, and I've been mulling over an idea ever since I posted it in passing ( Read more... )

I read a book last week. That shouldn't surprise any of you, given how I'll read just about anything that's printed (or electronic). But this book was...not a classic or anything, but a proper, literary modern novel. The kind of thing we would have read in Jeff Abernathy's class (he is no longer at IC, or in the classroom, so I feel like I can use ( Read more... )

Here's a list of the top 110 banned books. Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).Put a star next to the ones you love/recommend.

Read more. Convince others to read some.

( Check out the list! )

In the beginning, I didn't identify with Jo. I do now, of course...the whole "spinster writer" thing, the dream of revolutionizing education, the secret attraction to tall men with German accents...but when I first read Little Women, I thought Jo was too impulsive. I was a little afraid of the way she'd jump about, of the way her mind leapfrogged ( Read more... )

"I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once, that word 'good' so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing. There may have been a more wonderful first moment 'when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of G- ( Read more... )

Huh huh, I just said Hump Day. I totally channel 12-year-old boy, sometimes. Like when I'm stuck and wasting time at work ( Read more... )

Found on some blogs I like to read.... One of those quizzes where an English degree makes you look real good...!

Highlight in bold those books you've read.

Literary Test
Author - Title
-- Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and PrejudiceBaldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain ( Read more... )