This is one of my favorite passages in all of literature: The moaning scene in Catch-22, by Joseph Heller.

General Dreedle's nurse always followed General Dreedle everywhere he went, even into the briefing room just before the mission to Avignon, where she stood with her asinine smile at the side of the platform and bloomed like a fertile ( Read more... )

I guess you could consider his reclusiveness successful because I didn't know that JD Salinger was still alive. But he was! Until this morning! And now he's deadI've read Catcher in the Rye too many times to count, but it's Franny and Zooey that is my favorite of JD's writings. RIP, reclusive writer ( Read more... )

June 16, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor

But Always Meeting OurselvesBy COLUM McCANN ( Read more... )

A lot of the information that we have about the situation in Iran is coming from people on the ground, twittering updates about what is going on locally. As such, there's very little ability to confirm or deny any of the reports, but also as such, the twittering that can be confirmed has been confirmed by major news organizations operating in ( Read more... )

Two Thousand Aught Eight was an alright year. No, this isn't my Year In Review post, but a bunch of people have started posting their lists for the top [noun] of [year]. I hadn't even really realized that Christmas is over. Or that Thanksgiving happened, for that matter ( Read more... )

First, I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while I was on vacation. Let's sum up my thoughts about it (SPOILER ALERT FROM 2006 ( Read more... )

Here's a list of the books that are plugged on the Daily Show and on the Colbert Report ( Read more... )

Seaves told her Mom these two stories and her Mom said we should be writing these down so we don't forget, which is a pretty good point. So here they are, so we don't forget:

Cute Story #1For the last little while Drew has been pointing out "ouchies." He's fascinated with his little scratches and bruises. And we always ask to see them and then ( Read more... )

So this weekend has flown by. Friday night was really fun. Claire and I went to Harrison Road House for dinner and then out to the Kellogg Center for a benefit for the MSU Museum. Harrison Road House was only partly full when we got there, but *mostly* full by the time we left, with the games starting and everything. We walked from our house, ( Read more... )

"The [one] who does not read good books has no advantage over the [one] who cannot read them ( Read more... )