Oh dear. Java is me wrt the moth.

Well, it's not all like that. The book was written after her husband died, and she holed up in either VA or West VA. The book is very much about the beauty and the terror of the natural world. The thing that's so tragic about the moth scene is that it was totally preventable and caused by human ignorance. It's a heavy but good lesson to learn. Most of the book is about the reality of the natural world, which is both beautiful and terrifying - it being eat or be eaten, of course. It's well worth reading. It's beautifully written, she didn't win the Pulizer for it for no reason. I'm not sure what else I'm trying to say. It's about what IS in nature, and she presents all kinds of interesting stories of nature of the kind that billytea presents that we love so much, like a kind of bug that liquifies the insides of frogs and then sucks them dry and stuff like that. She pretty much sticks to the natural world of fauna and flora, not what humans do, with digressions into her own mental/spiritual state. Pulitzer!

Hey, AmyLiz! I liked John Dollar too. And it is Marianne Wiggins.

Near a river, used to be a kind of groovy-cool-hippy-arty-avante garde town.

New Hope is on the river in Bucks County, about fifteen mminutes north of me, and it's still very arty, antique-y, but with lots of fun bars and, strangely (?) a large contingent of motorcycle enthusiasts. In the summer, hordes of guys on Harleys cruise through the center of town. Love your tag, by the way.

Hey, Dani! John Dollar was just spooky-grim. Kind of Lord of the Flies with girls. Loved it. Her writing was beautiful. Nice to know someone aside from me read it!

"This town's unforgiving, they cannot keep secrets
They see his hand on my waist like a brand
But there's a bar in Bucks Country where they don't know his name
And a cowboy who might understand."

Love Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek

Oh dear. From all the Annie Dillard (and I had to try SO hard not to type Dullard) love around here, I guess this is the wrong place to say that after having to read that book for school, not only did I want to hunt her down, gut her, skin her, and leave her carcass for the animals, but would have liked to have gone back in time to do the same to Thoreau for giving her the idea in the first place?

Oh well, the guac is a lovely shade of green.

Your opinion is as valid as anyone else's, Frank, and you express it with humor and politeness, so no guac. Unless you're hungry, that is.

I just finished The Life of Pi. I thought it was interesting, but I'm still sort of puzzling over what I thought of the ending.

Hil, I read Life of Pi last Fall and am still mulling over the ending. Both scenarios seem plausible but I find that I really want to believe the tiger story; however, the part about the toxic island is what puts that story into question for me. The other, more mundane story is much less satisfying to me, but seems more believeable.

Granted, I don't think it's a very good high school book (or it certainly wasn't for me). I get what the teacher was trying to do by pairing it with Walden, but it just struck me as so twee and smug (and hippy dippy).

And yet, still liked it better than ETHAN FROME.

I liked having my wisdom teeth pulled better than Ethan Frome.