From One Book Lover

Cookie Monster, via Sesame Street , tweeted the following poem: This is just to say Me have eaten the cookies that were in the cookie jar and which you were probably saving for snack time Forgive me they were so delicious and om nom nom Me love poetry... and cookies! You may recognize its inspiration: "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams. I have eaten  the plums  that were in the icebox  and which you were probably saving  for  breakfast   Forgive me  they were delicious  so sweet  and so cold Thanks, Cookie Monster!

I am a fan of the electronic reader. I keep my Kindle with me at all times — one never knows when the need to read shall arise. A quiet lunch? A visit to the doctor's office? Unexpected downtime? All those and more translate into extra reading time, and I am glad I have my choice of books. I also keep my magazines on it so I'm never without a New Yorker . (Hey, I've got to be prepared for every contingency.) However, there's a limit to how I will use an e-book. Now, I didn't understand my limitations until recently, more than a year after I started loading my Kindle — and, now, my iPad (thank you, Kindle Reader app!). My limitation is simple, but clear: I will not take my Kindle to bed. Oh, I may work like a demon on my computer until 2 am and I may Pinterest or BuzzFeed on my iPad until way later than I should; I am, after all, only human (despite evidence to the contrary).  Electronics are valuable. However, I always shut off the electronics when I cli...

Courtesy Book Porn

Buddhist New Year Song I saw you in green velvet, wide full sleeves seated in front of a fireplace, our house made somehow more gracious, and you said “There are stars in your hair”— it was truth I brought down with me to this sullen and dingy place that we must make golden make precious and mythical somehow, it is our nature, and it is truth, that we came here, I told you, from other planets where we were lords, we were sent here, for some purpose the golden mask I had seen before, that fitted so beautifully over your face, did not return nor did that face of a bull you had acquired amid northern peoples, nomads, the Gobi desert I did not see those tents again, nor the wagons infinitely slow on the infinitely windy plains, so cold, every star in the sky was a different color the sky itself a tangled tapestry, glowing but almost, I could see the planet from which we had come I could not remember (then) what our purpose was but remembere...

Courtesy The Reading Room

The Swan at Edgewater Park Isn't one of your prissy rich peoples' swans Wouldn't be at home on some pristine pond Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms       in its tidal fringe Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck       into the body of a Great Lake, Swilling whatever it is swans swill, Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud, While Clevelanders walk by saying Look       at that big duck! Beauty isn't the point here; of course       the swan is beautiful, But not like Lorie at 16, when Everything was possible—no More like Lorie at 27 Smoking away her days off in her dirty kitchen, Her kid with asthma watching TV, The boyfriend who doesn't know yet she's gonna Leave him, washing his car out back—and He's a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and It's not his kid anyway, but ...

Michael Crichton was always about a decade before the rest of the world. Sucking dinosaur DNA out of bits of amber? Check. Computers taking over the world? Check. Time travel causing schisms in our universe and its travelers? Check. His last book seemed to look inward as much as ahead: to our cells and what's in them. Who owns a cell? Who owns a gene? Who owns the blood the doctors take from you to do tests? Rebecca Skloot was asking the same questions while writing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks during this time — and unfortunately, the ending has yet to be written for her non-fiction bestseller. Crichton takes multiple storylines and weaves them into a tapestry of confusion, deception, arrogance and chance. Frank Burnet's cells were taken by a doctor and used for research to develop a treatment worth millions of dollars, only Frank didn't know until much later, when he sued for a portion of the proceeds. Henry Kendall works at a lab in Maryland for a while...

América I. Although  Tía  Miriam boasted she discovered at least half-a-dozen uses for peanut butter — topping for guava shells in syrup, butter substitute for Cuban toast, hair conditioner and relaxer — Mamà  never knew what to make of the monthly five-pound jars handed out by the immigration department until my friend, Jeff, mentioned jelly. II. There was always pork though, for every birthday and wedding, whole ones on Christmas and New Year's Eves, even on Thanksgiving Day — pork, fried, broiled or crispy skin roasted — as well as cauldrons of black beans, fried plantain chips and  yuca con mojito . These items required a special visit to Antonio's  Mercado  on the corner of 8th street where men in  guayaberas  stood in senate blaming Kennedy for everything —  "Ese hijo de puta!" the bile of Cuban coffee and cigar residue filling the creases of their wrinkled lips; clinging to one another's lies of lost wealth, ashamed and ...

Whenever I begin reading a book by Neil Gaiman , I always think I know where I'm going. Then I read the second paragraph and I realize how fundamentally, overwhelmingly wrong I am. You may think Ocean at the End of the Lane is a book about what a seven-year-old boy experienced one summer. You may be right — a little. It's so, so much more. It was a riveting tale. Gorgeous prose, incredible storytelling, a flawless narrator and a tale that takes you places you never expected. Plus, kittens are involved: not always in a good way, but always as they must be. The young boy who is narrating the story is all of seven years old, and it hasn't been all that smooth – especially his seventh summerl. His own little room was being occupied by lodgers, and he had to share a room with his sister. His seventh birthday party was abysmal, but a quiet boy can endure much. Until the opal miner shows up and ruins everything. And that's when he meets the Hempstock women. The narr...

I, Too     I, too, sing America.   I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America. by Langston Hughes from Collected Poems Courtesy Poetry Foundation

I Hear America Singing I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,     Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe               and strong,     The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,     The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off               work,     The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-               hand singing on the steamboat deck,     The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing               as he stands,     The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-               ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown,     The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,     ...

What does "Independence Day" mean to you? Parades, barbecues, fireworks? How about sedition, treason and risking everything for what you believe? Watch this video produced by Declare Yourself — and pause to think about it. Be brave, be true. Happy Independence Day. If you can't get to the National Archives , take a gander below: here's what the Declaration of Independence looks like: Read the text here .

The library is a great place to shop for a single book, then cruise around the shelves for whole bunch of books on a single subject. Let's say, for example, a reader sees a reference to a book on creativity and writing by one of her favorite authors. She trips over to the library website and discovers, quite to her dismay, that the library doesn't have said book. What's a girl to do but shop around the shelves to see what other tender morsels are available for the plucking? It started with Ray Bradbury, whose Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity wasn't available in print or electronically at my library. It was, however, available on Amazon. (I will have it by Tuesday.) However, for fun, I clicked on the library database button "what's nearby on the shelf." I found Natalie Goldberg and her two titles: Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft and Old Friend from Far Away . Then there was Will Write for Fo...