Has modern life killed the Semi-Colon? - from the Slate.

Has modern life killed the Semi-Colon?

Not in my writing; excessive semi-colon use is one of my my major flaws.

so it's only semi-killed?

Has modern life killed the Semi-Colon?

As Patricia T. O'Conner postulated over 10 years ago:
Maybe it intimidates us; it shouldn't.

So, I'm (still) on vacation, in a beach house with The Boy and 13 of his family members, 7 of whom are his nieces and nephews, ranging in age from 10 to 22. One of the teenage boys is a nerdly type who is a computer whiz and works at the local library and organized a school trip to Japan.

After I read this Unshelved strip, I decided that the featured book would be the next thing I got from the library when I got home: [link]

Guess what book nerdly!nephew has with him? And finished today, so that I can read it?

Yup. Talk about synchronicity.

ION, I finished Woman's World, and it made me want to throw things. It's...typical, I suppose, for the type of story that it is, but it still pisses me off HUGELY, because it didn't have to go that way.

And I can explain further when/if anyone else reads it and wants to discuss it.

I loved Skullduggery Pleasant. It's really well done and hugely (YA) entertaining. Students dig it.

Currently reading: The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and The United States of Arugula by David Kamp.

Enjoying all three, but I can't say I like the multiple POV conceit of House. We'll see when I've finished. And I remember Plum Creek as one of my favorite Little House books (it's one of the few I saved), but it's not pulling me in nearly as quickly as the first two.

Arugula, which so far is basically the biographies of James Beard, Craig Claiborne, and Julia Child wrapped up together, is proving to be a great follow-up to The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry. Of course, I probably should have read them in reverse order. One day when I'm out of library books, I'll finally read that Julia Child autobiography I've had forever.

megan, I'm reading The Charterhouse of Parma now. I'm about four chapters in (Fabrizio is blundering around cluelessly post-Waterloo), and it's really quite wonderful and hilarious. Thanks for letting me know it existed!

Speaking of Waterloo, I'm also reading Wellington at Waterloo, which is the third part of Jac Weller's military biography of the duke, and something about it clicked for me--I not only knew what happened (which has been the case for ages), I could visualize it and see why. It's like my brain grew a whole new wing, one that's actually spatially aware and capable of visual thinking. (Either that or I actually am starting to channel the historical figures in my WIP, which would be kinda disturbing...)

Anyway, you know how in the Aubrey/Maturin books, Jack and his friends are always talking over battles at the dinner table using various bits of cutlery and stray food to represent ships? Well, I had lunch with DH today, and I was all: "See my plate? That's the main Anglo-Dutch line." I placed my soda on my right and a bowl of salsa on my left. "The chateau at Hougoumont and the farmhouse at La Haye Sainte. See how they'd slow any attacks on the main front?" Etc. I felt so geeky, both literarily and historically, not to mention smarter than I was this morning, which is a rare and lovely feeling.

Cool.

(One of my former co-workers is retiring on Monday and moving to a part of Missouri that's quite near the setting for On the Banks of Plum Creek .)

I read Knut the Difficult's new novel, Superpowers. And I review it (briefly) here. Summary: I liked it, and I think y'all would too.