I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri's third book, Unaccustomed Earth . I picked it up from HEB last week, not out of a particular fandom towards her work (I do think she's a great writer, but; s ee the but later on) but from a vague desire to read something that would engross me. I've read Interpreter of Maladies and found many of the stories to be moving, some very memorable, the characters' complexities...

fraeuleinchen posted this in her 7/25 post titled " It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a MEME!!!" Being book-ish myself--I'm not going waste my luxury car-priced English Literature degree, no matter how frivolous the endeavor--I thought this looks like a lot of fun. Though I hate to admit that I am embarrassed that I have not a lot on this list. I mean, why should I carry around the ghosts...

I had a really good weekend, even though it was filled with scary monsters and ghouls. Actually, the monster started chasing me last Thursday, when I had to work on a problem for a certain customer who is notorious for making everything urgent, at the last minute, which results in little people like me sacrificing weekends and a spike in their blood pressures. But all horror movies have their moments...

Today I had dinner with my sister. We walked over to the old airport, passing construction detritus, a taco cart, a roasted chicken cart, a lumpy path in the grass, and a concrete hull of a future Home Depot. The Star Flight helicopter flew over us three times. We shared a pizza and then each had our own dessert (lemon cake versus chocolate sour cream donut). Then we walked back the scenic route involving...

And one last word about books: Timothy Egan, a regular columnist for the New York Times, wrote a wonderful column in response to Apple's Steve Jobs' forehead-smacking remark: “The fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.” Maybe that's true for you , Jobs. Too busy playing with your ADD-inducing gadgets, perhaps? I know that...

fraeuleinchen  posted a cool mention of using reusable grocery bags - mentioning in a reply that Americans seem resistant to change.  So that got me started thinking - and since I had a few ideas I wanted to flesh out, I thought I'd put it here rather than in a direct reply. I wouldn't necessarily say Americans are any more or less resistant to change than anyone else.  Yes, there's a little...

Maybe you wouldn't get excited about receiving something in the mail made from elephant poo , but it made my day. Thanks, fraeuleinchen ! The paper is so soft and you write lovely letters. ~~~~~~~~ Following near drought conditions on the Reading-for-Pleasure plains, I've recently finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (young adult novel), by Sherman Alexie and a re...

So I went to the vocabulary bee on Sunday.  I had no idea it was part of the Texas Book Festival -- in fact, I had no idea that the Texas Book Festival was going on, so I was momentarily bewildered by all the tents and crowds around the Capitol building.  It took some effort to find the auditorium where it was held -- I wandered through the Capitol building for a while, and finally asked a policewoman...

On recommendation I recently watched The Bridge . I've never seen a documentary that both highlights a travel destination and deals with suicide. Parts of it were chilling. fraeuleinchen , you may like it, considering our mutual interest in death.