LIGHTNING ROUND!

Or "I'm A Little Behind On My Posting So Rather Than Going All Pat King On This Blog, I'm Just Gonna Post 'Em All Real Short And Quick"

Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself - Sabrina Ward Harrison

Sabrina Ward Harrison is an artist. A young artist. Finding her voice, her art, and herself. This book is a raw look into that journey. It is simultaneously private and universal, intimate and expansive. Through collages, quotations, and (mainly) excerpts from the diary she kept from ages eighteen to twenty one, we get to see Sabrina wondering all those things we all wonder -- who we are, how we fit in the world, how to accomplish our dreams. A beautiful book.

Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne

These books are perfect. Absolutely perfect. Sweet and warm and wonderful for children, hilarious and

profound and beautiful for adults. Plus I cried like a wee baby at the end. I already can't wait to read these again.

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

You've read this one, right? It's great, isn't it? On an unrelated-to-Everything-Is-Illuminated note, on the inside cover, in Jonathan Safran Foer's biography, it says that he is working on his second book, which is set in a museum. I wonder what that was going to be...

A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare

This is my favorite Shakespeare play. Pretty standard, perhaps. Overdone, perhaps. But my favorite nonetheless. Plus the Arden editions of Shakespeare's plays make my knees quivery and weak. Just thinking about them make me drool a little. Do I get to double count this one for memorizing a huge chunk of it and performing over eighty times in high schools throughout Idaho? Didn't think so. Really, though, I love this play.



A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room - Lemony Snicket

I LOVED the first Series of Unfortunate Events book. LOVED it. So I grabbed the second one as a breezy airplane read and, I gotta say, I didn't love it as much as the first. Not because it was any worse, just because it was exactly the same. I always love stories where kids are the heroes and where they use their own cleverness and teamwork to solve problems. Always. And this was no exception, just the second time around all the stuff I loved so much about the first one got a little repetitive.