Monthly Archives: December 2008
Best reading experiences of 2008
Now for my last post of 2008. Thanks to everyone who visited here through the last year — I’ve greatly appreciated your company! I hope each and every one of you has a great 2009. So, to my favorite books … Continue reading
Filed under Books
By the Numbers: 2008
Update: I finished another book and so have adjusted my numbers accordingly. I’ve enjoyed analyzing my reading using some math in years past, so I can’t resist doing it again: Books read: 63 Fiction (of any genre or length): 44 … Continue reading
Skating to Antarctica
Skating to Antarctica has confirmed for me that Jenny Diski is a writer I really love, one of those writers I’m incapable of being objective about and whom I will enjoy reading no matter what she writes. I read Stranger … Continue reading
Filed under Books, Nonfiction
Home again, home again
So Hobgoblin, Muttboy, and I are back home after a trip to upstate New York to visit my family. The trip was fine. I complain about how hard it is to visit my family, but the truth is that they … Continue reading
I’m off!
Hobgoblin and I are leaving tomorrow to go visit my family in the Rochester, NY, area and will be gone until sometime next weekend. I agree with what my sister said on the subject: “I’m staying until Friday or Saturday, … Continue reading
Filed under Life
The White Album
I recently finished Joan Didion’s 1979 essay collection The White Album. I surely have read some Didion essays before this, but I can’t remember any, and this is definitely the first book-length work of hers I’ve read. It was one … Continue reading
Filed under Books, Essays, Nonfiction
The Savage Garden
Mark Mills’s novel The Savage Garden is an entertaining comfort read, the sort of book that you don’t have to take seriously and one that can help you while away a cold winter evening (or a hot summer afternoon, or … Continue reading
Notes on Nothing
I’m in the midst of finals grading right now. I had my last class yesterday, give my last exam tomorrow, and have countless papers to read. I’ve calculated final grades for 11 of my 70 students. 59 to go! I … Continue reading
Creativity and Romanticism
Cross-posted here. In light of all the discussion over at Reading Gaddis about originality and creativity, I was struck by the passage (on p. 89 in the Penguin) where Wyatt quotes Herr Koppel, his art instructor in Munich: That romantic … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Time for reading
The Booking Through Thursday question from this past week interested me: 1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read? (I’m guessing #1 is an easy question for everyone?) 2. If you had (magically) more time … Continue reading
Book Group
My book group met this afternoon to discuss Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife, and it turns out we did have some things to discuss, in spite of my suspicions that we’d all say we loved it and then not have … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Intro to the Arts
So my Intro to the Arts (not its real name, but you get the idea) is almost over. We’ve done all the substantive work we’re going to, and now we’re preparing for the final. I have to say I’m very … Continue reading
Filed under Teaching
The Zookeeper’s Wife
One of my book groups is reading Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, and I found it an engrossing read, although I do wonder how much we will find to say about it. We’ll say things like, “wow, … Continue reading
Filed under Books, Nonfiction
Creativity
I was struck by a passage in The Recognitions about art and religion (p. 34 in the Penguin edition). Can you imagine if you were a child and took your first drawing to your aunt with whom you live and … Continue reading
And now for something completely different
It doesn’t have to be all books and bikes all the time around here, does it? I saw the “Homemaking, A-Z” meme over at Emily’s (who found it here) and thought it looked like fun. Emily says that when it … Continue reading
Filed under Life
Beginning Gaddis
I am an entire 26 pages into Gaddis’s 950-page novel, and I thought I’d let you know how it’s going so far. So far, so good. I can tell it will be a slow read, but that’s okay — slow … Continue reading
