Category: Thoughts About Books
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Cozy Books
“Is The Kite Runner good?” I asked Amy while perusing her bookshelf for something to read. “Oh, you haven’t read it yet? You should read it!” So I read it, and it fell vaguely short of my expectations. Which was somewhat of a feat, as I had very few expectations going into it. I guess…
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Bookweek Day 6: Some Final Thoughts
Thought 1: Well, you all have convinced me. I have, once again, started The Scarlet Pimpernel. I am currently 3 chapters in and very confused as to the exact political beliefs of the various men in the bar. But I’m powering on, regardless. Thought 2: Hamlet just does not have the rabid fan base that…
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Bookweek Day 5: The exclusive club of true bookworms.
When I was a kid, I noticed a lot of weird tropes in the books I read. Like, the author would say “grown-ups don’t understand X,Y, and Z,” when the book was obviously written by a grown-up. Characters would say “this is just like something that would happen in a book!” when, duh, they were…
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Bookweek Day 4: Should you finish reading a boring book just because it’s a classic?
I’ve started a lot of books that I never finished. In general, I feel zero guilt about this. There are so many great books in the world to read, so why waste time on the boring ones? But there are a few books, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and Hamlet, that I do feel guilty about.…
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Bookweek Day 2: On Reading Diaries
This is my current collection of other people’s diaries. I find them at garage sales sometimes. It’s absolutely fascinating to me what makes people choose to write down one thing and not another. A diary must be the closest thing to glimpsing the actual inside of a person’s brain. Mostly, I’ve found, people write down…
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Bookweek Day 1: On Katherine Patterson, and layers of meaning in Children’s books
I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been reading an assortment of books, so why not make this week a book week? We’ll see if it lasts six days or five days or just today. I’m not usually much of a nonfiction reader, but I’m discovering that nonfiction books by your favorite fiction writers…
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MOP April 27: A Few Notes
The thing about setting a lofty goal for myself like “I’m gonna post every other weekday in the month of April!” is that sometimes I post things that resonate with a lot of people and get lots of comments, and other times I barely have it in me to post at all. Today is the…
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MOP April 15: Emily and Jenny Review a Book
“Hey Jenny, I have an idea!” I said. “Yes?” she asked, warily. “Let’s do a video book review of…” I scanned the stack of books she had recently borrowed from me. “Once On a Time!” “Hmm…well…” “Come on, we’ll make a really short video that doesn’t need to be edited. And we’ll take turns talking…
The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots 