the book bum

     Most people have sappy days.  Most of my friends will tell me that they have days when all they want to do is switch on Netflix and find a movie that makes them cry.  But, you know, sometimes the Internets are not working or all that blue light is making your eyes bleed.  To remedy such crises, I have created this list as an alternative for people who would like to read a book that will make them cry.  Some of them are romantic-sad, some of them are tragic-sad, some of them are beautiful-sad. And I guarantee that all of them are good as well as tear-jerking.   My cat is having One Of Those Days 1. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - Whoa, whoa, wait .  Is this really a YA romance in which the girl isn't gorgeous and flawless???  Yes.  Yes it is.  You're welcome. 2. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Di Camillo - An arrogant porcelain rabbit doll is lost by a little girl and learns what love is by l...

A mini-library in Park Slope, Brooklyn - GOD it's so cute      For me, this time of year means nonstop action - essays, tests, cross-country practices, holidays, and rushed, chilly walks to the subway.  I like being busy, but often when I'm studying and hurrying I find myself fantasizing about the all reading I'd do if I had any spare time.  I think I would be much more educated and cultured if my teachers just shut me up in a room with a load of books, rather than expecting me to come to school.  Oh well.      Here are my fantasy reading goals for sometime when I have more time.  (And if you happen to have a lot of time right now, why not attempt one?) 1. Read a ridiculously long book - War and Peace , or the Bible, or the entirety of that endless series about feral cat colonies, Warriors - and admit to yourself that you're mostly reading it so that you can tell people you read it. 2. Go camping/sit in a shed/climb up a tree/ac...

          It's been way to long since I posted some yammerings here!  Sorry.  School started again and things got crazy.           I should be going to bed right now so this will have to be a short post.  I guess, since I am feeling very excited about the arrival of fall (Every time the seasons change I hyperventilate with joy! It's exhausting), I should make a list of cozy fall books.  Do you know what kind of books I mean?  Comforting, heart-melting ones.  I would not, for example, recommend The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or 1984 specifically for a list like this - the former is so ridiculous that it sort of stretches your mind out of shape like a very old T-shirt, and the latter makes you question EVERYTHING and wake up in cold sweats as you question the very nature of human nature.  Not that they are not phenomenal books; they just don't belong on this list.   Hitchhiker's Guide is OBVI...

          Hey, it's Carly and Grace, typing to you from under an umbrella by the side of a pool at a house in the Hamptons.  (Not bragging at all!!)  Okay, I'll admit we don't own this house.  We're here because of the charity of a marvelous family friend, Ellen, who rented the house and invited us to stay with her.           Aside from whacking each other with pool noodles, grilling, and running on the beach, Grace and I have been working on our summer homework, and because of this we've both ended up reading books we might not have otherwise.  So we're going to review The Omnivore's Dilemma  and The Secret Life of Pronouns for you! Me, studiously trying to read, while Grace lies on my back... The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is an interesting dissection of the issues we humans face every time we enter the supermarket. As omnivores we can eat almost anything under the sun (and absolutely...

Maya Angelou died this past May, leaving a treasure trove of writing for us to read and remember her by.            It all started with the discovery of a bookstore.  I found it because I had eaten breakfast in a cafe down the street.  I shot inside and read the first chapters of a couple of different books in a state of hyperactive delirium before focusing on a small robin's-egg-blue paperback book sitting by the cash register.  I'd heard of the book before - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - and I knew that I would have to buy it.  I read about Marguerite's (that was her given name) silk Sunday dress made out of a rich woman's worn-out gown and the three-line poem she was meant to recite to her church and the "space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil" before I paid and left.            I thought about the book on the bike ride home, and when I had finished yank...

Some scenery from my trail crew trip last year.           Starting this Sunday, I will be on a volunteer trip to repair trails in the wilds of some area of the United States whose name currently escapes me.  I've done this kind of thing once before.  Basically, we start out at some kind of wilderness headquarters and hike out to a patch of trail that needs maintenance.  Then we come back five days later, dirty, reeking, and very happy to see a flush toilet.             There will be very little space in my monster hiking bag for frivolities such as books, so I will not be reading much this week.  This is a list of what I will be doing instead:           1. Stuffing my monster hiking backpack with supplies, struggling to hoist it onto my shoulders, and then buckling under the weight like a sad and metaphorically charged statue, like my friend did on our last trip.     ...

          Have any of you read  A Little Princess  by Frances Hodgson Burnett?  It was the book that made me love books.  (Does every book-lover have one of those?  Do you?)  I first read it when I was very little and have spent the last two days rereading it, as I tend to do every few years.             But the thing that struck me about the story this time around is that the story's preteen heroine, Sara Crewe, seems to have life completely figured out.  Even when she loses both her father and her fortune and is working as a hated scullery maid at her London boarding school to pay off her debts, she never sacrifices her virtues of benevolence, hope, and grace.  Her secret is that she considers herself a princess in spirit, even when she is no longer as wealthy and privileged as one.  Sadly, I have not yet gotten my life philosophies together and lack Sara's ability to gracefull...