Writing the good read
A few years back I picked up a really interesting book, Mystics, Mavericks and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls by Stephanie Wellen Levine. Essentially the published version of an academic thesis, Levine spent a year living among the young Hasidic girls of the Lubavitcher community in New York. I grew up in a…
I did it again: two random books that on the surface couldn’t be more different, read back to back, and they go together like barbecue and Copper River Salmon. As I mentioned yesterday, I was reading A Mountain of Crumbs. Throughout the book, author Elena Gorokhova recalls how she came to crave a chance to…
If I have a large pile of books next to the bed, I often have a hard time picking which one to read next. So to help with my decision making, I read the review blurbs in paperbacks. The other day I picked up A Mountain of Crumbs, the memoir by Elena Gorokhova. One of…
I spent what will hopefully will be the last nice spring day in a periodontist chair today. I really like these guys. They don’t see my great dental insurance when I walk in the door, which is a novel experience. Most dentists try to talk me into braces and quarterly cleanings because they’re covered. These…
I just finished Bossypants by Tina Fey. It was okay, kind of funny. But I am increasingly disillusioned with the literary efforts of funny television and film stars. Over the years I’ve picked up books by Paul Reiser, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jerry Seinfeld. None of them were as funny as I hoped. The alternative was…
I have to apologize. I asserted a week or so ago that I had an uncanny knack for choosing my reading and finding that the books had an unexpected relationship to each other. The next two books I read have proved my statement a lie. At least this time. I read The Uncoupling after reading…
Today is a theme day for the blogathon. We’re supposed to write about our five favorite books on writing. I can think of a few I like and one I’m unsure of, but most of what I’ve learned from writing I’ve learned from reading great writers. Sometimes I underline passages, corner pages, or otherwise deface…
I have this weird ability to choose books that when read sequentially, relate to each other. I don’t do this consciously. It just seems that, more often than not, my choices of books (usually from a large stack next to the bed), are linked in some meaningful but not obvious way. Since the year began,…
Today is the last day as the NAIWE Words Matter Blog Challenge. Todays topic: Words, like moths, are captured by writers who pin them to the page in various forms. What writer’s work most deftly captivates you? Why? Easy answer for me: Jane Austen, particularly Pride and Prejudice. I read it at least once a…
I don’t usually view reading as a race to the finish, but t around mid-November, I looked at a stack of about 10 books next to my bed and determined I had to finish it before the end of the year so that I could start 2011 and the Autobiography of Mark Twain at the…