But someone needs to tell me why they loved Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, so I will be inspired to read it again and love it.

Because it lead to the Grade 11 3rd Period IB SL History Class to challenge the Grade 11 1st Period IB SL History Class to a food drive, the losing class doomed to wear Scarlet L's on their chest for a day?

And because my class won, so I spent a goodly portion of a week creating lovely, delicate L's out of tin foil and red construction paper?

That's a very personal reason, having nothing to do with the text, I fear. But it's the best I can come up with. Though I recall liking Young Goodman Brown.

Well, thanks for trying, though. Maybe you can tell me why you "Nightwing" instead? Tee hee!

Maybe you can tell me why you "Nightwing" instead?

Ha!

Err. That's one of the things that takes a long time to answer. Pete made the mistake of asking me at coffee once who I liked better, Batman or Nightwing, and got about 15 minutes of explanation about what I got from each storyline instead of the simple answer he was aiming for.

Besides, it's all tied into why I'm finding that getting my narrative fix from comics works better for me than anything else these days.

I saw the filmed version of "Jude" with Kate Winslet. At the end of it, I was swearing to never have sex again, never even think about having children, and especially never, ever, ever, to cast so much as a second glance at a cousin. (Not that this was a major problem in my particular family, since I have no cousins I see more than every five years anyhow, but it's still a useful concept to remember.)

OTOH, I quite liked Tess of the D'Ubervilles, even if I did spend large chunks of the book wanting to grab both Tess and Angel by their shoulders and shake them HARD.

Margaret Atwood has a poem "Twice-hung Mary" IIRC. I read it once and just thought - Wow. At the time I thought it was cool because it was based on a true story (of a woman who was hung for a witch IIRC, but didn't die because she didn't weigh enough to either break her neck as she fell, or strangle herself- the poem is told from her point of view as she waits through the night for the people who essentially betrayed her to return and realize she hadn't died).

I love Emily Dickinson- her poems are so deceptively simple.

One of my favourites of Plath is "Mirror":

...

I am not cruel, only truthful-

...

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

...

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old

woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

I had a wonderful conversation with a mathematics professor Senior year. He wanted me to consider going to graduate school in mathematics. I said "But I'm not brilliant." He replied, "Neither am I. But for every Gauss, the field needs a hundred other people to pursue the implications of what he discovered." I've always been amazed by the humility and wisdom of that response.

One of my undergrad professors hated the movie Good Will Hunting for exactly this reason. He went on a whole rant about how movies like that are what turn too many people off of math.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old

woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Holy fuck that's harsh. Me likey.

I know people may avoid lightbulbs for many reasons, but since the topic is a bookclub thread and it has been suggested (and I am inclined to agree) that people could organize that within this thread, I thought more active users of this thread might want to read through peoples' thoughts over there.

I think it boils down to whether or not 1) enough people want to participate in a bookclub thread or want to have one for those who do want to participate. & 2) an organized mass (several persons?) reading of a single text and the ensuing discussion would so disturb this thread to result in many posters (arbitrary # here) leaving.

At least it boils down to that for me.

I started Ronald Dahl's Witches yesterday. I don't read tons of this younger YA and I've never read Dahl before, is this typical for him? one of his best? worst?

Have any parents had good/bad/indifferent experiences with your children reading it?

I started Ronald Dahl's Witches yesterday. I don't read tons of this younger YA and I've never read Dahl before, is this typical for him? one of his best? worst?

Mmm, that's a great book. Also a good movie, even if they changed the ending. I'd say it's one of his best. I read a lot of Dahl back in the day.