Category Archives: On Reading

Agent Cooper, Nancy Drew and More from the Problogger Group Writing Project

Last night’s work read made The Time Traveler’s Wife look like chick lit. Here are the rest of the posts I’ve enjoyed from the Problogger Group Writing Project. You can find the complete list here. 5 Worst Things They Do in Movie Sequels Very good insights. My favorite: Some movies just shouldn’t have a sequel at all, really, whether or not the audience clamors for one. Sometimes it’s better to just leave it to the imagination. Sometimes that’s what makes an awesome movie be more…

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Fantasy Series, Reading Ladies & More–Selections from Problogger’s Top 5

In honor of today’s work read, a police procedural that left me hungering for Ruth Rendell, I give you my list of the posts I’ve enjoyed so far from the Problogger Group Writing Project: Top 5 Most Entertaining Foreign Films of the Last Decade An fun list of films, though I would quibble and say that City of God isn’t exactly “entertaining” in the traditional sense. I’d replace it with Strictly Ballroom, unless he’s being strict about foreign language films, not just foreign films–which seems…

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How I Feel About the Library

Ian from Upper Fort Stewart has a good post about how he doesn’t love the library, and asks how others feel about this venerable institution. I love the library. It might be my favorite place in the world, in theory if not always in practice. I always feel immediately at home in a library, no matter where I am. I’ve never felt that comfortable in a bookstore. I have always been a library lover, going back to my earliest days. I lived for those all-too…

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Emotional Reads

I like to be moved by literature, which is why I don’t go crazy for metafiction or postmodernism or overly intellectual fiction (Don DeLillo, Thomas Pyncheon, etc.). Such was the book I read yesterday for work. Otter asks, What are the five books in your library (or memory) that stirred the greatest emotive reaction in you? What I mean is, what five (or more) books most brought you close to tears, laughter, anger, whatever?

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AM Homes–Oui/Non?

Today’s work book was for kids. Gayle at Everyday I Write the Book has a post up about AM Homes that I largely agree with. Great characters, complex situations, but ultimately soulless. I remember this being a trend about 10 years ago, epitomized in Homes’s books and Todd Solondz’s film Happiness. I believe art should explore the dark sides of human nature, but there has to be a purpose–a story worth telling. On a related note, House Next Door has a fantabulous dialogue between Matt…

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