Dana Swier Huff's Blog, page 68
June 23, 2011
The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
Hadley Richardson Hemingway is perhaps best known as the first of Ernest Hemingway's four wives. The Paris Wife is the story of how the Hemingways met, married, and lived in Paris as Hemingway's writing career was beginning. During this time, Hemingway writes In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, and The Torrents of Spring. They meet and befriend such Lost Generation writers as Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and other key figures of the Left Bank artistic renaissance of the 1920′s. The novel chronicles the infamous trip to Pamplona that inspired The Sun Also Rises as well as the couple's trips to Austria and the disintegration of their marriage when Pauline Pfeiffer, who would become Hemingway's second wife, enters the picture.
I haven't read Hemingway's memoir A Moveable Feast, so I can't argue with reviewers who say that this novel is basically the same story from Hadley's point of view, but somehow, I don't think that's all it is. I was swept into the story immediately, and whipped through the last 40% of it on my Kindle last night. Hemingway and Hadley's relationship intrigued me. McLain evokes the Hemingways' Paris skillfully (and definitely made me want to go!). Fans of Hemingway's work will meet all those who inspired his fiction in the pages of McLain's novel, too. Hemingway said of Hadley in A Moveable Feast, "I wished I'd died before I ever loved any other woman but her." Ultimately, the book is about their romance—and even years later, after Hemingway was on his fourth wife, and she was happily married to journalist Paul Mowrer, they still had something of their old feelings for each other. Some critics say Hemingway tended to idealize Hadley, particularly as he grew older. She had some spirit. She followed Hemingway and supported him as he fulfilled his dreams, but when it came time to put up with his infidelity, she drew the line.
I enjoyed meeting all of the characters, particularly Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Lady Duff Twysden (the inspiration for Lady Brett Ashley), and Hadley herself. I have been intrigued by Hadley ever since I was in college when I met a girl in my dorm who had been named after her—her parents were, I believe, English professors. What kind of woman, I wondered, would inspire Hemingway to marry her when she was eight years his senior and he was a young, good looking, up-and-coming writer? This book is a fantastic read with some gorgeous language in its own right and a fascinating glimpse into the Hemingways' romance. I highly recommend it, especially to Hemingway or Modernist literature fans. A few favorite quotes:
No one seemed to have any hold on anyone, in fact. That was a sign of the times. We were all on the verge now, bursting with youth and promise and little trills of jazz. The year before, Olive Thomas had starred in The Flapper, and the word suddenly meant jazz and moved like it, too. Girls everywhere stepped out of their corsets and shortened their dresses and darkened their lips and eyes. We said "cat's pajamas" and "I'll say" and "that's so jake." Youth, in 1921, was everything, but that was just the thing that could worry me sick. I was twenty-nine, feeling almost obsolete, but Ernest was twenty-one and white hot with life. What was I thinking? (location 789)
And for the rest of the lunch our table was like an intricate game of emotional chess, with Duff looking at Ernest, who kept one eye on Pat, who was glaring at Harold, who was glancing furtively at Duff. Everyone was drinking too much and wrung out and working hard to pretend they were jollier and less affected than everyone else. (location 4092)
"Sometimes, I wish we could rub out all our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning," I said. "And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes." (location 4100)
"I'm always on your side," I said, and wondered if I was the only one who felt the complicated truth of that hovering over us in the dark room. (location 4579)
McLain's prose reminded just a bit of Hemingway's—you can see the polysyndeton, for example, in the second passage, which is a scene that would be familiar to those who have read The Sun Also Rises. One thing the book made me want to do is run right out and read A Moveable Feast. The Paris Wife is a beautiful book.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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Post © Dana Huff
The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
June 22, 2011
WWW Wednesdays—June 22, 2011
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you'll read next?
I am currently reading Paula McLain's novel about Hadley Richardson Hemingway, The Paris Wife. I have been reading a lot of books set in Paris this year (compared to usual, I guess). I guess I'm on a France kick. This one is really good so far.
I recently finished reading The Tempest by William Shakespeare (review) and The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins (review).
Next I plan to read The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer, and beyond that one, I'm not too sure. I guess I'm open for whatever looks interesting.
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Post © Dana Huff
WWW Wednesdays—June 22, 2011
June 21, 2011
Teaser Tuesday and Top Ten Tuesday—June 21, 2011
What to do when you have found two interesting book memes and want to do both, but you don't want to write two different blog posts? Combine, them I say.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
My teasers:
"This isn't a detective story—not hardly. I don't want to say, Keep watch for the girl who will come along and ruin everything, but she's coming anyway, set on her course in a gorgeous chipmunk coat and fine shoes, her sleek brown hair bobbed so close to her well-made head she'll seem like a pretty otter in my kitchen."
—location 116 on my Kindle, The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain
The Broke and the Bookish has a weekly Top Ten. This week's focus is book blogging.
Top Ten Reasons I Love Book Blogging
The other book bloggers in the community are some of the nicest people on the Internet. I enjoy being a part of such a friendly group.
Book blogging offers me a chance to reflect on (as well as keep track of) all the books I read. It's nice to be able to look back at books I've read and know not only exactly how many I read, but also how I felt about them.
Blogging has opened some doors for me in terms of being able to afford more books. I am an Amazon associate, and the good people who buy books from Amazon after clicking through a link I followed generate a small commission that Amazon pays me in gift cards. It feels a little bit like being paid for doing something I love, but it has also enabled me to do what I love—not sure I could buy all these books otherwise.
This last year especially had some real professional ups and downs for me, and this blog was a refuge. I blog about education at huffenglish.com, and I have found it harder to feel motivated to write for that blog lately for many reasons, but this blog has been a true source of inspiration.
Through this blog and through Twitter, I have had the opportunity to interact with authors. Syrie James and Jael McHenry both have mentioned my reviews of their books, and I had the amazing opportunity to interview Mary Novik.
Being a part of the book blogging community has introduced books and authors to me that I might otherwise not have heard about or read. It would be impossible to figure out how many wonderful books I discovered through other book bloggers.
Participating in reading challenges and chronicling them on my blog has helped me try out new books. I have enjoyed many of these new books. Some challenges I have begun to look forward to every year (Carl's RIP Challenge, for one). For the first time this year, I hosted my own challenge.
Book bloggers inspire me to read more. One year a few years ago, I only read 14 books. This year, I've already read 21. Some book bloggers are such fast readers that I can never hope to compete with the speed through which they fly through books, but without the inspiration to try, I'm not sure what my reading life would look like. My friends tell me all the time they don't know how I read so much or how I find the time. Little do they know there is this world of readers in the book blogosphere who far outstrip anything I do! I do think I have become a faster reader since I began blogging.
There is no better community for talking about books and reading than the book blogging community. Everyone else loves reading as much as I do and is just as excited about reading as I am. Reading can be a lonely activity. I'm not part of a book club, but I plan to revive our faculty book club next school year. It's fun to share books and reading with others. It's one of the reasons I chose to be an English teacher. Now that I am moving into technology teaching, it will be more important than ever for me to have an outlet for talking about books. The only thing that could be better is if we could gather regularly with food and chat in person.
This last one might seem silly, but I find that book blogs are the prettiest blogs I read. All the pretty book covers and headers with books or readers of cups or coffee or tea. So homey and pretty. I like hanging around places like that.
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Post © Dana Huff
Teaser Tuesday and Top Ten Tuesday—June 21, 2011
June 20, 2011
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, widely believed by scholars to be the last play he wrote alone, is the story of the exiled Duke of Milan, Prospero, who calls forth a storm to shipwreck his brother Antonio, who has usurped his dukedom, and Alonso, King of Naples, who helped Antonio. Following the shipwreck, Alonso and company are separated from Alonso's son Ferdinand and believe him to be dead. Ferdinand meets Prospero's daughter Miranda, and the two fall in love at first sight. Prospero is served by two "native" inhabitants on his island—Ariel, a spirit Prospero freed from his imprisonment in a tree by the witch Sycorax, and Caliban, Sycorax's son. Prospero promises he will free Ariel after he has accomplished his goal of uniting his daughter with Ferdinand and recovering his dukedom.
I first read The Tempest many years ago when I took a Shakespeare course in college. I am not sure I understood it at all, and of all the plays I've read by Shakespeare, I think this is definitely one that needs to be seen. I am in the unfortunate position of not being able to do that at the moment. It doesn't seem as though any version is available on Netflix. The version directed by Julie Taymor won't be available on DVD until September. I looked around on YouTube, but nothing is jumping out at me. The Julie Taymor film does look good:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Watching it even in clips in the trailer made me realize just how visual the play is, and probably not the best one to try to read rather than see.
I really found myself drawn to Ariel and Calaban, and the movie certainly seems to play up what I thought was interesting about each character. It's strange how your memory plays tricks on you because I remembered Caliban saying "'Ban-'ban-Ca-caliban" over and over, but he only says it once, in a song—and he was drunk at the time. Ariel was interesting in seeing the way to freedom might be cooperation with Prospero; Caliban refused, and his situation is left ambiguous in the end—would he be freed, too? Or left alone on the island? Reading this again was like reading it for the first time, given the time between readings, and I was surprised to find that Prospero kept his word to Ariel. I didn't expect him to. I know that The Tempest has been subject to colonial interpretation before, but it is an interesting lens through which to view the play.
I reread this play for many reasons. First, I want to read Dexter Palmer's steampunk novel The Dream of Perpetual Motion, which is based on The Tempest, and I thought familiarity with the source material would make it more enjoyable. I'm also participating in the Shakespeare Challenge, and I wanted to read a play I didn't know well. I have taught Romeo and Juliet so many times that I can recite large chunks of it. I have also taught Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and Much Ado About Nothing. The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's greatest plays that I was almost completely unfamiliar with.
If I had any problems with the play, I think they arose from the visual nature of everything from the magic to the jokes among Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban. In a novel, an author describes these events for the reader, whereas in a play, the writer assumes the actors will bring it to life, and Shakespeare, more than any other dramatist I have taught, trusted actors and directors and left little behind in the way of stage directions. I'm not a scholar—lack of stage directions may be a convention of Renaissance drama—but it is something I have noted before and discussed with students. Eugene O'Neill, for instance, and Arthur Miller, too, have explicit directions.
As always with Shakespeare, there is a passage or two that take your breath away with their beauty. My favorite (and it's certainly one of the most famous Shakespearean passages) was this one:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
I know that some scholars believe Shakespeare meant both the earth and the Globe theater in this passage—that it was his goodbye letter to theater. It's a great metaphor for theater—it is the stuff dreams are made on, in so many senses of the word.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (I can't give a Shakespeare play any other rating. It's antithetical to the English teacher code.)
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Post © Dana Huff
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Musing Mondays—June 20, 2011
Do you like movies made from books? Which ones do you think have been done well—kept mostly to the plot of the book, etc?
I do like movies made from books, and I find that it is OK for them sometimes to veer a little from the book. I think books and movies probably need to be viewed as separate entities and enjoyed accordingly. Even though the Harry Potter films have cut some of the things I like best about the books, and sometimes even added details that were not in the books, I have still enjoyed them immensely. Most of the Jane Austen films I have seen have been pretty good. I even liked the 1999 Mansfield Park (but will admit the Fanny Price in the movie was not the Fanny Price in the book). My favorite? Eeesh. I don't know. It's hard to pick between Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility and the two Pride and Prejudice films. (Colin Firth or Matthew Macfadyen? You see the dilemma.) Gone With the Wind and The Thorn Birds were great both in print and on film.
I almost always say the book is better than the movie, but there are some exceptions. Because of its superb casting, I felt that the film version of The Princess Bride improved on the book. I also thought the film based on The Da Vinci Code was better than the book, perhaps because Dan Brown's strong suit is not character development, which is something actors can compensate for. Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" was great, but the film fleshed out the characters and storyline more, and I thought it was better (one of my favorite films, actually). I haven't read Forrest Gump, but I did read Gump & Co., the sequel, and if Forrest Gump was written similarly, let's just say that the film was probably an improvement.
On the other hand, no one can deny that films sometimes butcher the story badly. Perhaps because I haven't seen it, I should not speak about the latest Beowulf film, but come on—Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother? And Grendel is the—well, one hesitates to use the word love child, but—love child of Hrothgar and Grendel's mother? And the dragon is the unholy offspring of Beowulf and Grendel's mother? Nope. That's playing too fast and loose with the material for my liking. I don't even care that Neil Gaiman wrote it. And do you remember the evil Disneyized version of Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron? No? Good. I'm trying to forget it. I am saddened by the notion that plenty of people never picked up those wonderful books because of that horrible film. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is one of my favorite books, but the film stank. A lot. Funny story about that, too. John Berendt was the keynote speaker at Georgia Council of Teachers of English conference in 1998. He was asked what he thought of the film, and he replied that he had been so good… then diplomatically added that he liked the film for many reasons, not the least of which was that it sold a million copies of his book. The film based on A. S. Byatt's Possession was OK, but there are too many layers to that book to capture on film.
I haven't seen Water for Elephants yet. I don't have major problems with the casting, as some folks seem to have had, but I'm scared it will stink. And I loved that book. The reviews have been mixed.
Some book-based films I'm looking forward to seeing are The Hunger Games and The Help.
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Post © Dana Huff
Musing Mondays—June 20, 2011
June 19, 2011
Best Dads in Literature
In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd pull together my own list of the top five dads in literature.
Happy Fathers' Day to all those dads, but especially to my husband, Steve Huff; my dad, Tom Swier; and my grandfather, Udell Cunningham.
Atticus Finch. Probably first on any list of great literary dads, Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird showed his children through example why doing the right thing is always best, even if it isn't easy, and that there are all kinds of bravery. Atticus is believed to be based on Harper Lee's own father Amasa Lee. Harper Lee gave Gregory Peck (pictured above with Mary Badham as Scout), who played Atticus in the film of To Kill a Mockingbird, her father's pocket watch.
Arthur Weasley by Makani
Arthur Weasley. The beloved patriarch of the Weasley family in the Harry Potter series, Arthur Weasley is a role model to his children and a father figure to their friend, Harry. He is brave, loyal, hardworking, and fair-minded. Some readers may not know that J. K. Rowling considered writing Arthur Weasley's death into Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but he was given a reprieve when Rowling realized losing his father would alter Ron's personality in ways that wouldn't work for the character.
Señor Sempere. Father of Daniel Sempere in The Shadow of the Wind, Señor Sempere was a bookseller who took his son to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books to adopt a book. The elder Sempere is the only parent young Daniel has after his mother's death, and he sacrifices to buy him Victor Hugo's pen.
Mr. Bennet. Hear me out on this one. Pride And Prejudice's Mr. Bennet has his faults. He lets Lydia and Kitty run wild. He holes himself up in his study on a regular basis. On the other hand, he loves Elizabeth and encourages her to marry for love. On Mr. Collins's proposal, after Mrs. Bennet tries to enlist Mr. Bennet's help in making Elizabeth see reason, he says, "An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."
Robert Quimby. Ramona's dad is awesome. In Ramona and Her Father, Ramona's dad loses his job and her mother goes to work. One of the most heartwarming episodes in children's literature is the chapter in which the Quimby family can finally splurge and go out for hamburgers, and a nice elderly man at another table pays for their meal. Having been the recipient of this exact kindness myself, I can tell you how much it means.
Who do you think the best dads in literature are?
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Post © Dana Huff
Best Dads in Literature
June 18, 2011
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, Alexandra Robbins
In her latest book, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School, Alexandra Robbins, author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities and The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, examines what she calls the "cafeteria fringe"—the group of kids marginalized by so-called popular students. Robbins's argument is that schools and parents should be doing more to encourage the unique traits often found in the cafeteria fringe because they are the very traits that will make these students successful after high school.
I was a part of the cafeteria fringe when I was in high school. For starters, I went to three different high schools. I played the flute, so at least being in band was an activity that enabled me to make some friends. When we moved to California when I was a freshman, it took me a month to find friends to eat lunch with. I dreaded that hour of loneliness, watching all the other groups congregate in their favorite areas of the school year, wishing I could figure out some group to be with. When I moved to Georgia in the eleventh grade, I was already dreading the prospect of sitting alone for who knew how long. However, a girl in my homeroom asked me to eat lunch with her that day. It was a small kindness, but she has no idea how much it meant to me then and still means to me. In other words, I could identify with what Robbins says in this book about outsiders. She's absolutely right that after high school, it gets better. Of of the most interesting things about Facebook to me is that it has allowed me to see what happens to the so-called popular kids after high school. Most of them stayed close to home in the case of the last high school I attended. But they are no better or worse off than anyone else. The special status they were accorded in high school did not seem to follow them. And that message is important for all students, whether they are cafeteria fringe or part of the in-crowd, to hear. As a teacher, the aspect of Robbins's book that bothered me most was seeing teachers not only perpetuating the type of bullying that goes on between cliques, but actively engaging in it themselves.
This is an important book for parents, teachers, and students to read. In fact, it might be a good idea to ship copies to school libraries. I like the way Robbins exposed the workings of high schools by following seven individuals through a year in school: Danielle, the Loner; Whitney, the Popular Bitch; Eli, the Nerd; Joy, the New Girl; Blue, the Gamer; Regan, the Weird Girl; and Noah, the Band Geek. It was easy to identify with each individual for various reasons, but mostly because the narratives offered insight into how these people saw themselves and their schools; it was easy to see how they were all struggling with similar issues—even Whitney. Interspersed throughout are essays about issues raised and tips for students, parents, teachers, and administrators about how to "set things right and reclaim their schools" (379). It's a gripping, engaging nonfiction read, which I won't go so far as to say reads like fiction, as the book jacket does. It's perhaps more compelling because it reads like the truth.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Full disclosure: The publisher supplied me with a copy of this book.
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Post © Dana Huff
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, Alexandra Robbins
June 17, 2011
Friday Finds—June 17, 2011
This week has been a pretty good week for book scouting. First, via Carl, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. It looks like a delightfully creepy gothic novel, and I can't wait to read it.
When The World Spoke French by Marc Fumaroli was mentioned in this week's History mailer from Any New Books. It's a history of influence of France in the time period between the death of Louis XIV and the French Revolution.
Just today, I discovered Summer in the South by Cathy Holton via Darlene from Peeking Between the Pages. I love Southern gothic. Doesn't it look good?
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Post © Dana Huff
Friday Finds—June 17, 2011
June 16, 2011
Booking Through Thursday: Interactive?
I detect a bias in the way this week's Booking Through Thursday question was asked:
With the advent (and growing popularity) of ebooks, I'm seeing more and more articles about how much "better" they can be, because they have the option to be interactive … videos, music, glossaries … all sorts of little extra goodies to help "enhance" your reading experience, rather like listening to the Director's commentary on a DVD of your favorite movie.
How do you feel about that possibility? Does it excite you in a cutting-edge kind of way? Or does it chill you to the bone because that's not what reading is ABOUT?
I know that there is a dedicated group of readers who seem to be anti-ebook and are worried about the direction reading is going in. I am not among their membership. I think ebooks are great. I think the possibilities for books are opening up. Who knows what ways we might be able to interact with them? I have an app on my iPhone that is a version of "The Three Little Pigs" (iTunes link) illustrated and read by a six-year-old boy in Texas. I also have another app based on "The Velveteen Rabbit," (iTunes link) one of my favorite stories as a child because oh! I wanted my toys to become real. The app allows me to watch a video based on the book, read the book, listen to Meryl Streep read it, or read and record myself. I have a Sherlock Holmes Vook (video book—iTunes link) on my iPhone that allows me to view videos that contain insights into Sherlock Holmes and Victorian London. My Kindle has a feature that allows me to see what passages other readers like enough to highlight. I can share my own notes and highlights with others and access them online later with a secure link. It sure beats thumbing through a book trying to find that passage again. I love being able to move my cursor to look up words I don't know in the dictionary.
If you haven't guessed the answer to my question, I'm excited about the possibilities that ebooks and devices like the iPad and Kindle offer readers. Who says that reading has to fit some narrow definition or be confined by some idea that a book isn't supposed to be a certain way? If you don't want to interact with your book, you have the option not to—paper books have not gone anywhere and won't go anywhere soon. I for one think that now is an exciting time to be a reader (and a writer—ebooks are opening up the closed world of publishing to indie writers like me).
I am starting see a trend among readers who want to stop any sort of change. The most disturbing aspect of this trend to me is that these types of readers seem to believe that they are somehow more authentic readers or love books more because they don't like ebooks. That's snobbery. Why be so judgmental? So it's not for you. Don't do it. You can avoid ebooks if you want. But to insinuate that interactive features that are now available with the advent of ebooks detract from reading and are not what reading is ABOUT is a fairly antiquated opinion to hold. It rather reminds me of folks who insist graphic novels aren't real books or that one should not read books like romance novels, mysteries, or chick lit. Bottom line? People should be able to read what they want, however they want, and other folks should have better things to do than stick their noses in the air about it. Put your nose back in your paperback where it belongs. I guess I am getting a little tired of these snobs telling me I shouldn't read ebooks.
The subtitle of the photo I chose for this post is "un texte est un texte." Translated into English, that means "a text is a text." Exactly so.
Edited to add:
Click here to view the embedded video.
I forgot to mention ebooks on the iPad and Kindle and just about every other reader I can think of allow readers to change the font size, which opens up reading to people who couldn't. So there is also that.
[image error] photo credit: Remi Mathis
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Post © Dana Huff
Booking Through Thursday: Interactive?
June 15, 2011
WWW Wednesdays—June 15, 2011
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you'll read next?
I am currently reading The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins. It's a really good read, and I think anyone who is a teacher or parent should probably read it for the insight it gives into how painful the teen years can be and what children that age are facing.
I know I said that I would read The Tempest next, but I am just not feeling up to it yet. I guess I want lighter fare as the summer begins. I will probably start The Paris Wife by Paula McClain next—perhaps not tonight, but tomorrow. It looks pretty good. It's told from the point of view of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's first wife.
I recently finished The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry (review). Wonderful book! Highly recommended. I also finished A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz (review) since last week. Summer means more time to read!
A side note: I am really enjoying seeing my map fill up for the Where Are You Reading Challenge. I am beginning to have a little bit more diversity in terms of setting than I had a few months ago. You can view my map in progress (you can click on the map and drag it around):
View 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge in a larger map
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Post © Dana Huff
WWW Wednesdays—June 15, 2011
