I gave up. Full confession. I tried, I really did. I even broke down and got an audio version to listen to during my commute to and from work. But I just couldn’t take it. I think it in part an effect of this little reading challenge project I set for myself. This was the fourth Jane Austen book in as many months for me. … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All-a-long Book 4: Emma
What makes a book a classic? Lionel Shriver was a guest on my favorite BBC program A Good Read. You can listen to the program here. It was the dullest episode of my favorite program ever. Knowing something of what Ms. Shriver is like in person, I almost didn’t listen, but I thought I’d be open-minded, give it a try. The conceit of A Good … Continue reading Sunday Rant and Ramble: Lionel Shriver Makes me Mad; A New Cat Arrives; Tournament of Books Results
This post is more of a ramble than a rant, so don’t worry. It’s been a busy week, getting ready for the 20th anniversary party C.J. and I threw yesterday, so there have not been many posts here lately. I’m hoping to have a good amount of down time today, enough to relax and get a bunch of robo-posts ready for the week. Some I’m … Continue reading Sunday Salon: Catching up with This Week’s Reading and Lionel Shriver Wears a Funny Hat.
Usually, I make it my policy not to correct people on Facebook, though there are many people who are frankly wrong out there. Except for the occasional stray bit of punctuation, and spelling “a lot” as a single word, I make it my policy to let things slide. Though many people want to make the world a better place through linking, I believe sites like … Continue reading Sunday Salon: I Trolled Someone On Facebook And I Liked It.
Hanya Yanagihara’s editor asked her to make changes to A Little Life, specifically to tone down the abuse in the second half of the book and to cut several hundred pages from manuscript. Ms. Yanagihara refused, according to an article in The Guardian. Had she taken her editor’s advice, her book would have been better, in my opinion. Author’s listen to your editors. Still, A … Continue reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I once dated a guy in A.A. who broke things off with me because I wasn’t an addict. He said that since I was not an alcoholic, I could never really understand him. There’s not really anything you can say to that. I’m not going to become an alcoholic just so I can win you over, not matter how blue your eyes are. (They were really blue, … Continue reading Sunday Salon: A Little Link Hate With Added Dating Advice From a Rambling Old Pro
I’ve been reading Kenneth Oppel’s book Half Brother during Reading Race time at school. Reading Race’s are this thing I’m inventing this year to replace student book clubs. I loved book clubs, but my district changed the make-up of my classes this year–apparently the district administration read a study; if you’re a teacher, you know what that can mean–in such a way that I can’t really manage … Continue reading Sunday Salon: What if you saw your mother nursing a monkey?
Serves me right, really. Going on a book buying binge, even a small one, like I did the day before The TBR Double Dog Dare began. And buying two books by an author I’ve never read based on her reviews alone. Karin Fossum has been getting a lot of praise around the book blog/book review world of late. Her Inspector Sejer mystery series has been … Continue reading Sunday Salon: One Book I Won’t Be Finishing and One I Might
Friday I took a sick day and paid a visit to the Rug Doctor. I should say the Rug Doctor paid a visit to my house where C.J. and I spent most of the day working on two floors of carpets. We have three dogs at the moment, only one of which is consistently housebroken. So every couple of months we arrange for a visit … Continue reading Sunday Salon: Random Ranting
Parajunkee.com ran a short post on how to draw traffic to your book blog this week. Her top ten ways to bring more readers to your book blog were: Tutorials Resource dump Lists Cheat Sheets Rants Challenge/Project Posts Event Post/Participation Post Personal Stories Survey/Quiz Comedy I refuse to run tutorials because I teach for a living so I’m not going to give it away. I’m … Continue reading Sunday Salon: Do You Read Book Reviews? A Challenge and a Rant and a Sad Attempt to Attract Traffic
Insulting people for being old: You mock the thing you are to be, as Mel Brooks once said. I’ve had enough. There are too many people out there who think it’s cute to make cutting remarks about old people. I’m going to call them on it, as nicely as I can. It’s one of the rew remaining acceptable forms of prejudice left, at least among … Continue reading Sunday Salon: Things I’m Done With; a Rant
This was my favorite bit of spam this week: I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I don’t know who you are but definitely you’re going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers! I know it’s fake. I know it’s computer generated algorithms with no human emotion behind it at all, but I considered … Continue reading Sunday Salon: You’re Going to be a Famous Blogger, If You Aren’t Already and What Was Lost in Translation
May Contain Spoilers 