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Showing posts from December 26, 2010

By the skin of my teeth...

Kind of a disgusting image, when you think about it. Makes me want to pull out the electric brush and scrub until my gums recede. Finished my 100th book of 2010 with twenty-five minutes to spare. Whew! Not a very thick coat of plaque between me and failure. How lame to finish the year one book short. I couldn't let myself. Now I'll have time for long books again. Happy New Year!

Still Counting...

Two more days, two more books. I'm rediscovering all the great short novels in my house. Who knew the shelves held so many? I might never have remembered them without this urgent need for short books. I reread Fahrenheit 451 last night for the first time since college, when Ray Bradbury came to speak and I soaked up every word. I still want to "graduate from the library" the way he claims to have done, but I fear I fall short. I am astonished to think that he wrote F. 451 in 1952, never having seen ear buds and ipods and large-screen TVs; and a whole generation of increasingly obese preteens (30%) who do little besides play Nintendo and Wii; and hoards of teens who sit  in rooms full of other kids and text as if no one else exists. And nobody reads. And picture books are dying a slow death. And literary fiction is dying a speedy one. And book stores have to sell movies and music and coffee to stay alive. And anti-racist books like To Kill a Mockingbird are banned be

Foot Odor Lingers...

I live with foot in mouth. When I speak, nothing comes out the way I meant. When I write, my words have a chance of approaching the outer rim of my intent. I write to make myself feel slightly less of an idiot. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.   --Joan Didion

Countdown...

Two books today. Yeah, okay, they were only 130 pages each and written for twelve-year-olds, but I have a challenge to meet, dang it! Four books to go...

Countdown to New Year's Eve

Six more days and six books to go. It's 1:37 a.m. Christmas night. Just finished book number 94. Probably should read shorter books, but I'm hooked on this series, which is priming my brain to work on the boy story again.