Category Archives: Books

Gridlock

Yesterday we had a big snowstorm here in Cleveland. My drive home from work – normally about half an hour — took five hours. That’s right. Five hours. 2:30 to 7:30. Broad daylight to darkness. Along about the three-hour mark, … Continue reading

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Thankfulness

I’m grateful for all the usual things. I’m lucky not to have to worry about clean water, cholera, mudslides, gang violence, political oppression, an adequate diet, and so on and on. Middle-class Americans are set apart from so much of … Continue reading

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Waiting for Jonathan Kozol

I saw Waiting for ‘Superman’ today, the much-hyped documentary by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). I was all set to defend the movie to my teacher friends who decry its anti-union sensibility, some of whom won’t even see it … Continue reading

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Another Day…

…another marvelous CSU story. This morning I went off on a tangent in Latin 201, telling my students I reread Crime and Punishment this summer and making some obscure connection between the Dostoevsky novel and our text, the Cupid and … Continue reading

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“Wounding, Destruction, Despair, Healing, and Love”

Millicent Monks gives new, horrifying meaning to the term “sandwich generation.” Her memoir Songs of Three Islands: A Story of Mental Illness in an Iconic American Family describes being caught between mentally-ill parents and a daughter with borderline personality disorder. … Continue reading

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Wilder Indians

After reading and blogging about two of my old Weekly Reader Book Club books (here and here), I moved on to another children’s book that I knew made reference to Native Americans. I never read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books as a child, … Continue reading

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The Far Frontier

So I pulled out another favorite Weekly Reader book that over the years I’ve muddled in my mind with Fear in the Forest (see previous post). Written by William O. Steele (illustrated by Paul Galdone), The Far Frontier takes place … Continue reading

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Fear in the Forest Redux

At Half Price Books a while back, I ran across a pristine copy of Fear in the Forest, an old Weekly Reader favorite of mine, complete with its original cover. I purchased it for $10.00 and intended to give it to … Continue reading

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Jane Austen and BPD

It’s true that after writing about my mom and researching borderline personality, I’m inclined to see the disorder lurking behind every frowning face. But I can’t go so far as to diagnose Mrs. Norris of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (which … Continue reading

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BPD in Fiction

Speaking of books, I recently finished 36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Despite the title, it’s a novel, and also despite the title, it’s an argument for atheism, the latest salvo in the New Atheism … Continue reading

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