Oh and Steph, did you know that the 5th (Mortal Coil) book will be out in the UK in September? Fabulous!

Oh and Steph, did you know that the 5th (Mortal Coil) book will be out in the UK in September? Fabulous!

I saw that! Excellent!

So, a student of mine wrote a summary of The Outsiders. It was fine, except for the summary of the ending, which claims that Ponyboy decided to write his theme on Gone with the Wind, focusing on the idea "stay golden".

This, if you have not read the book, is Clearly Wrong, and I'm not sure where said student came up with this idea, as it doesn't seem to be one of those "watched the movie" errors. Any ideas?

eta: Nevermind, I found it. It's a significant mis-reading of the last chapter of the book. le sigh.

I "discovered" an author, Ariana Franklin, who writes historicals -- kind of medieval CSI mysteries with a touch of romance. There are some inaccuracies, but I am ignoring them, as I read Mistress of the Art of Death last night, and quite liked it.

I have the second book in that series, and she's written several others. She has good characterization, and a lovely, wry, dry wit.

Ooh, I think I read that. And I think I liked it.

I didn't realize my memory for books had gotten this crappy. I'm sure I read it in the last couple of months and yet I can't reliably retrieve anything beyond the title. I'm pretty sure I didn't know it was a series, though, so now I can keep an eye out for more.

What was the misreading? I don't remember anything about GWTW in book, and it is making me laugh!

Johnny and Ponyboy read GWTW repeatedly, and Ponyboy picks up the book and looks at a note Johnny left in it (about the poem from which "Stay gold" is taken), and decides to write about the recent events in his life (including Johnny), and the book flippin' ends with the first couple sentences repeated from the beginning of the book.

Somehow student read this and came up with him writing about "stay gold[en]" in Gone With the Wind.

HA! Debetesse, at least that's an understandable misreading. Hand to god, I had a student write about how the poem Hollow Men is about scarecrows!

I finished Julie Powell's book Cleaving. What an unpleasant book that is. It's not the infidelity, or the smugness of her HAWT ROUGH SEX LIFE, it's the smarminess that kills. And the boringness of the whole thing.

Oh- I remembered that they were reading a book repeatedly, but I forgot all about the GWTW. Granted, it has been about 20 years since I read the book.

Is it possible the student only read the first and last chapters or something?