Comedy and discoveries and Old Bay.

You have GOT to see this... from a graduate level computer science class.

Things I'd like to find.....candy canes and egg nog.  Not where I live...this is a BCN purchase.

The stupid dog just finished licking all the polysporine off his heels, an antibiotic ointment for those who may not know it, but has turned up his nose at Old Bay on my popcorn!  Goodness, no taste this beast.

The Canadians in the crowd may well have heard of Canada Reads.  It is, in it's own way,  kind of like a nationwide book club.  For one of the courses I am designing I have to come up with two books....as I have said in previous posts.  The first is and will be Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.  I am in the middle of this slim novel now.  It is astonishingly well written with great depth and I, somewhat fearfully suspect it is going to haunt me and change me in small and subtle ways...or maybe not so subtle.  It is however something that I don't leap into with unmitigated joy.  Slide into with held breath would be more like it.

The second novel, Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson, which I have also mentioned, is not getting uniformly rave reviews.  While it is undoubtedly an important book, the word boring has cropped up in the same sentence with the title.

There are a series of things I have to take into consideration here.  I don't want to study a European or British book thankyouverymuch.  Time for some culture from somewhere in  North America.  Plus, I need books with a lot of free on-line video and audio associations.  The Morrison and Housekeeping I chose because they are part of Amy Hungerford's American Novel since 1945 class offered free online by Yale University.  Good enough I guess.

Still somehow...... well, I wanted something a little fatter...the book that is, though chocolate is always good and fatty too, on top of that I wanted a Canadian author.

Then I was listening to Shelagh Rogers on the handy dandy new iPod (thanks Mom!!!) and she happened to mention....Canada Reads!  And I thought...perfect, absolutely stinking PERFECT!!!!

Well.  All those books looked simply marvelous, and I am so wildly happy to have good reading material, and I have only one. more. day. of work and I will very soon have lots of time for reading....so....

I bought all five.  In the special group pack with the book bag.  (shhhhhh)


Well, actually, there is no-one to hide it from.  I think already that I am going to use Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner.  The name of the book and the authors name sort of ring together, don't you think?
Anyway, it is translated from French and is about three Quebecois living in Alaska. Sounds like a good cross-section of North American themes, and I know the Catalans will be interested in the Quebec angle.....

Great books, set in Canada and the States, lots of audio and video with a variety of accents and a faster speed.  And I should be able to find one that makes me want to dive gleefully into the story rather than tiptoe around the edges, fascinated but nervous.

Now to wait for the books to come.

Oooooohhhhh, and I am going to pick out another book to read.  I can't read the Morrison before bed.  The dreams.......

Nothing like a Friday night with the family, watching the Marx brothers, buying books and reading to put a girl in a good mood.