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Book review: The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses

When I saw this book on LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers list this past spring, I knew it would be right up my alley (she said, while having an afternoon snack). So, thank you to LibraryThing, and to Putnam Books (Penguin Group), for the chance to read and review an advanced copy of The Appetites of Girls,

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Late July journal updates

Wow, I knew I hadn’t posted in a while, but didn’t realize it’s been over two months — jeesh! And truthfully, this is sort of a faux-post, which I’m able to put up only because Ryan’s baseball coach decided not to go to the post-season awards night.  Apparently Ryan was one of only two or

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In which I make excuses for my silence

I had a feeling I was overdue to write a blog post, and now I see, it’s even been a few days longer than I thought it had. And so, here’s some of what I’ve been doing the past couple weeks (or nearly that) since I last posted (and unfortunately not very much reading). As

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Family game night?

My mother-in-law is here for the night, there’s nothing “must-watch” on TV, no firm plans. After dinner, I asked Jeff, “So did we decide anything about whether to play a game or something?” Jeff says, “No, not yet. Why, Honey, what would you want to play?” “Um…nothing.” “Oh really, nothing?” Jeff asks me, “What’s your

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More social media — but I think I’m wiser now.

At my mom’s funeral service, as I was getting a sympathetic hug from my great-aunt Joyce, I heard her ask close by my ear, “Are you on Facebook?” I avoided joining Facebook for a really long time, for many reasons. One, I have a MySpace account, but I hardly ever go to the site anymore

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Reading, writing, and breathing

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.—Henry David Thoreau (Walden, 1854) I am thinking this evening about quiet desperation. My feeling tonight is not quiet, but angry and restless and relentless desperation.—written by me, on Sept. 24, 2009 This past Thursday evening, I slid into a terrible dark mood. I wrote a blog,

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The life of my mind

Last evening, while walking on the treadmill, I finally watched a BookTV program I recorded in May. It was an episode of After Words, with guest interviewer Sara Nelson (author of the wonderful So Many Books, So Little Time) talking to Elaine Showalter about her new book, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers

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My LibraryThing anniversary: ah, Book Love!

I created my LibraryThing account one year ago today, and immediately started adding books. There are now 710 books in my catalog, which is still not all the books I own. I have to confess, once I got the bulk of the literature and fiction done (most of which is in “the red room” in

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Quick note on Monday in Seattle

Another good day today. Interesting and informative sessions – though I only stayed in my afternoon session for an hour instead of 90 minutes, just tired at that point, and the third speaker’s topic wasn’t as relevant to me as the other two. Got to see Meghan, an old friend from Smith, and we had

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Memorial

In the interest of providing a quick update on what’s been going on with our family this past month or so, I’m re-posting a couple of blogs that I first posted on MySpace. This is a short one, posted on April 21, 2008. Jeff is driving the boys to school, and I may have five

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