Through a Glass, Darkly

-A friend of a friend has started a blog for girls to write their reviews of books that they read. If you love hearing what young people have to say about books as much as I do, give it a look (and give them some encouragement in the comments).

-Scott Westerfeld’s take on the Amazon/Macmillan showdown that happened over the weekend seems to me to be the clearest discussion of what happened and why.

-I enjoyed this article because I have been on both sides of that fence. Sometimes I want to talk about my favorite books (Harry Potter) and sometimes I don’t want to share them with anyone. While I will admit to being somewhat snobby about what I choose to read, I hate the snobbery of reading. I don’t think reading socially makes you less of a reader (I am happy when people read for any reason). I don’t think that a book club that reads literary fare is better than a book club that reads popular fiction.

-I keep trying to think of a way to write something about this, but Roger Ebert’s essay from a few weeks ago about memory and food and communal eating is just a gorgeous piece of writing. And very moving. If you missed it before, I encourage you to read it.

-It snowed here this weekend, and as we live in North Carolina, this was cause for great excitement. It was too cold for us to sled, really (why be miserable if there are no children insisting that we do so), but we went for some walks and shared some meals with the neighbors and I made bread. And what do you know, we’re out of eggs. We really should have bought some at the store on Thursday.