Last night, Jeff and I watched Creation, a lovely little film that dramatizes the period in Darwin’s life right before the publication of On the Origin of the Species. For those who are not familiar with Darwin’s biography or married to a historian … [Read more...]
A Thousand Splendid Suns: Everybody’s Protest Novel
December 30, 2010 By 3 Comments
Let me say first of all that when I read The Kite Runner for our college’s Common Reading a couple of years ago, I was not the only person to say, “But what about the women?” So it’s good to see a book in which Hosseini answers that question. Well, … [Read more...]
The problem with happiness?
December 29, 2010 By 3 Comments
Somewhat ironically in the service of my own happiness project, inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s book of the same name, I’ve been looking at psychology blogs and stumbled across this one by Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D. In this article, Kashdan cites research … [Read more...]
Why I can’t watch Californication anymore
December 27, 2010 By 5 Comments
It is not great revelation to say that I had a huge crush on David Duchovny during The X Files days. Nor is it particularly unique. Yet, I was living a Duchovny-less life until a few years ago when a friend recommended I watch Californication. So I … [Read more...]
Under-appreciated literary fiction
December 25, 2010 By 7 Comments
What literary title do I love that has been under-appreciated? A tough one, in part because it's hard to decide exactly what "under-appreciated" means. I confess that I don't read a lot of book reviews. I used to, and then just found that the … [Read more...]
How to be good
December 25, 2010 By 2 Comments
If I had to pick a super power, the ability to read people’s minds would not be high on my list. I feel all in all, we really should not know what other people are thinking most of the time, but one thing I would like to know is if other people spend … [Read more...]
Top ten fiction books I read this year
December 19, 2010 By 6 Comments
These are the top ten works of fiction I read in 2010. Note that these are just books I read this year, and not books that came out this year or even recently. It’s hard to judge what’s best with fiction, but I went for a combination of enjoyability … [Read more...]
What do you consider the most important in a story: the plot or characters?
December 18, 2010 By 5 Comments
Interesting question from the Book Blogger Hop sponsored by Crazy for Books. For me, it's definitely the characters. I'm a sociologist. I find people and how they think and, especially, how they interact with each other, infinitely fascinating. … [Read more...]
The top five nonfiction books I read in 2010
December 14, 2010 By 4 Comments
I sat down to write about just the 5 best books I’d read this year, but surprisingly found that the first 4 I put on the list were nonfiction. I grew up a hardcore fiction reader. I was the kid who jonesed to get to the library in the summer. There … [Read more...]
Straightening the bathroom towel and other acts of love
December 3, 2010 By 2 Comments
I have discovered about myself, with the help of a trained professional, that I don’t like to do things the normal or necessarily “easy” way. Meet someone you love, get married, spend several years in childless wedded bliss before you either become … [Read more...]
