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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
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- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
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Tag Archives: children’s books
“If you don’t see the book you want on the shelves, write it.” — Beverly Cleary
“I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids. That’s what I wanted to read about when I was growing up. I wanted to read about the sort of boys and girls that I knew in my neighborhood and … Continue reading
“My aim is to imply rather than to overstate. Whenever the reader participates with his own interpretation, I feel that the book is much more successful.” — Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats was one of my authors when I was about six years old and his books were staples in my childhood. He is somehow looped in my head to Sesame Street, because the world being depicted in his … Continue reading
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
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R.I.P. Beverly Cleary
“I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids. That’s what I wanted to read about when I was growing up. I wanted to read about the sort of boys and girls that I knew in my neighborhood and … Continue reading
Today in history: March 11, 1916
Ezra Jack Keats is one of my favorite children’s book author, and he is always, somehow, looped in my head to Sesame Street, the world being depicted in his classic tales (Peter’s Chair (Picture Puffins), The Snowy Day, Whistle for … Continue reading
Where the Wild Things Are; (2009) Dir. Spike Jonze
Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are isn’t plot-driven. There’s not much text, and he uses a lot of repetition (“and they roared their terrible roars,” etc.) that gives the book an incantatory feel. As though we, as … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged children's books, James Gandolfini, literary adaptation, Spike Jonze
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Happy Birthday to Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats is one of my favorite children’s book author, and he is always, somehow, looped in my head to Sesame Street, the world being depicted in his classic tales (Peter’s Chair (Picture Puffins), The Snowy Day, Whistle for … Continue reading
The Books: “The Hobbit” (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again, by J.R.R. Tolkien As a child, I was never a Tolkien fanatic. I was a fanatic about other books – all of Madeleine L’Engle’s “time” books, and I … Continue reading