Early Sunday Morning Thoughts

Fine, it's not early, although I remember once upon a time (i.e. college) where 10:30 on a Sunday morning would have been simply asking way, way too much. And then I grew up and acquired two dogs.

A few thoughts-

I purchases a Panel Pass for the LA Times Festival of Books next month (it's at lame-ass USC again). It's actually really inexpensive and let me sign up for panels before the public- so, a friend and I are going to see Adam Mansbach (see below), Judy Blume (for total nostalgia purposes) and my beloved T.C. Boyle. Oh, and the price includes a poster, that I'm a little excited about putting up in my classroom. Despite the fact that it's at our rival's campus, I'm pretty psyched.

Adam Mansbach, the author of Go the Fuck to Sleep, has come out with a kid's version entitled Seriously, Just Go to Sleep. Seriously, I think this is what we call selling out. Kids don't need everything their parents have, for crap's sake! Plus it just seems like an obvious ploy to capitalize on the success of the R-rated version. I'm interested to hear what he has to say about this at the reading next month.

I'm technically reading three books right now- I feel like a dirty, dirty book whore.

Two of the books I'm reading are for work- All Quiet on the Western Front and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I've read both before in high school and have come to the realization that I barely remember either. This actually sincerely disturbs me- what other books have I forgotten? On a happier note, though, my sweet little minions (I truly love 95% of my students this year, which is fantastic) actually seem to be enjoying them both. I really love planning lessons for novels, which makes work pretty awesome right now (it would be even more awesome if it started an hour later).

The other book I'm reading is called Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas. I had felt like I had been reading a little "below my level" (book snob alert) lately and needed to high-brow it up a bit. While the writing is great I still haven't decided on what I think of it as a whole.

While not bookish, I have to be fair and give credit to Pinterest for redoing their Terms of Use. While not perfect, it's definitely a start.

I have $251.55 worth of books placed in my Amazon cart- none of which I intend on buying... right now. There's something extremely cathartic and invigorating about adding and adding and adding. In case you're wondering, it would get me 18 books. If I was buying clothes it would maybe get me six pieces. Books trump clothes every single time.

I recently discovered a new book called Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed and it looks really awesome, especially since I'm prematurely getting psyched for Half Dome this summer (we actually thought about doing Whitney for like ten minutes, but my friend and I don't do the whole "sleeping outside" nonsense). She did the eleven-hundred mile hike alone! Impressive. I desperately want this book, but it seems I have a few ahead of her in line...

My blog traffic has jumped through the roof ever since I posted on stupid Fifty Shades of Gray last week. While traffic is always good, I'm not sure how I feel about getting it for this reason.

The Mad Men premier if on tonight. This has nothing to do with books. I'm a little upset that it's going to be two hours- that's like a movie. I don't like movies.

That's pretty much it.