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Author Archives: lfpbe
Thoughts on Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (by Bethany)
This novel is set in Australia in the summer of 1900. At its outset, the students and staff members of Appleyard College are preparing for a picnic, and one gets the sense that this picnic is the most exciting break … Continue reading
A Review of Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (by Bethany)
This book was everywhere for a while. I know that I resisted its pull for a long time before I bought a copy. I was intrigued, but this was maybe 10-12 years ago and I knew myself to be very … Continue reading
Yarn Along
Jill’s scarf is coming along nicely, and this photo finally does the colors justice. I am reading Ben Tarnoff’s The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers who Reinvented American Literature. I’ve only read about 40 pages but am … Continue reading
Posted in Yarn Along
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A Review of Jennifer Miller’s The Year of the Gadfly (by Bethany)
Books often present adolescent angst as more organized than it actually is. Books for and about teenagers are full of secret societies, secret passageways in the bowels of high schools, passwords and codes that are passed along through the years … Continue reading
Yarn Along
I’m finally almost finished with the two green sweaters! This is the smaller of the two, and it’s all pieced, and all I need to do is knit the neck. The larger of the two is all ready to piece … Continue reading
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The Parallel Lives of Jay and Grey (by Bethany)
When I used to teach The Great Gatsby, I spent the better part of a class period on the vehicles depicted in the first three chapters. My goal, of course, was to prepare the students for the climactic scene when … Continue reading
A Review of Miranda July’s The First Bad Man (by Bethany)
It seems that everywhere I go these days, everyone is talking about female sexuality: Fifty Shades of Grey, to name one omnipresent example, plus Lena Dunham and Girls, and of course the ongoing national debate about rape and the many, … Continue reading
Posted in Authors, Fiction - general, Miranda July, Reviews by Bethany
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Yarn Along
I’ve been such a restless reader lately. Fifty pages here, fifty pages there – not liking any book well enough to make the full 300+-page commitment. But then, a couple of nights ago, I picked up this old copy … Continue reading
Posted in Yarn Along
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Thoughts on A.H. Jones’ Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (by Bethany)
About 75 pages of this book were assigned for one of the MOOC’s I’m taking, and since I’m a bit of an overachiever (at least in College Education 2.0 I’m an overachiever; in the first go-round not so much), I … Continue reading
Yarn Along
Miranda July’s The First Bad Man is strange, but in a good way. It’s a love story, a parody of typical erotica, a work of legitimate erotica, a coming-of-age narrative, and Fight Club reimagined for women (which is not to … Continue reading
Posted in Yarn Along
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Postcards From Purgatory 