Fiction
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Nellie Returns
Nellie and the Coven of Barbo is back! After a hiatus of a few weeks to wrap up the school term, I have returned to the regular publication schedule. In today’s chapter, we pick up where we left off: kids have disappeared, other kids are concerned, strange conversations have been overheard, and now two classmates… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Final Week: The Middlesteins
This will be the final installment of this year’s Summer Book Club! I’ve enjoyed this project a lot – both the incentive it gave me to read a lot of books, and the comments from all of you about what you’ve been reading. My intention is to hold a blog book club again next summer. Thanks… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Week 9: Asterios Polyp
This week’s Book Club post is a quick one, as I am recovering from minor surgery and would rather be reading than writing. Last week, commenter Kathleen recommended the graphic novel Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli; I immediately grabbed it from the shelf of my local library and read it in an afternoon. I have a feeling… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Week 8: The Saga Series, Vol. 1
Guidelines for the Summer Book Club: if you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week? Please comment, or post on your own blog and link in the comments below. Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man is my favourite graphic novel series; in 2010, one of the installments made my… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Week 7: Why Libraries Rule
Guidelines for the Summer Book Club: if you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week? Please comment, or post on your own blog and link in the comments below. I began and tossed aside a number of books this week. The only one I read through was… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Week 5: Astonish Me
Guidelines for the Summer Book Club: if you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week? Please comment, or post on your own blog and link in the comments below. According to the jacket flap, Maggie Shipstead’s Astonish Me is about “the nature of talent, the choices we… Continue reading
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Summer Book Club Week 4: The Other Typist
Guidelines for the Summer Book Club: if you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what are you reading this week? Please comment, or post on your own blog and link in the comments below. I had issues with Suzanne Rindell’s The Other Typist. It appears that I liked it, because I finished… Continue reading
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Fiction Makes You Better at Stuff
I’m planning some research on whether reading/studying fiction and other kinds of narrative is really such an important thing to do. I was therefore immediately drawn to this article (even though it’s Saturday night and I’m desperately trying to finish grading a stack of papers): a commentary on why techie geeks should read fiction. Is… Continue reading
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How Sexy is Too Sexy?
How much explicit sex is acceptable in a book required for a college class? If students have some say in whether they read the book, does that make a difference? One of my courses includes a list of eight novels about adolescence. Four or five students will read each novel and will work together to… Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.