Don't tell me what to do, you ain't the boss of me.

But, because I like you, I will anyway. (That and the fact that I love the sound of my own voice.  Really, I'm tearing up right now it's so beautiful.)

I reread books all the time.  My analogy is  'I like meeting new people but that dosen't mean that I don't want to hang out with old friends.'

At the moment I'm rereading Twilight Watch by Lukyanenko, having reread Night Watch and Day Watch. I  stopped  Day Watch to read Last Watch for the first time last week but picked it back up when I was done.  I might reread Last Watch again when I'm done.

The Lord of the Rings I've probably read seven or eight times through since the first time at thirteen or so.

Most extreme forms of this behavior I've exhibited are rereading Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff a week after I finished it the first time and rereading the first six Harry Potter Books after I read the seventh and then reading the seventh again when I'd finished. (You're gonna run on sentence, run on. Let me tell you editor almighty is gonna cut you down.)

Really since we are all changing all the time you can never read the same book again just as you can never stand in the same river twice.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Dead Aid" arrived from Amazon today.  I wanted it for my Kindle but they don't have it yet.  It's a slim volume that chronicles the wasted billions in US (and other Western governments) aid to Africa over the past three decades.  It's Moyo versus Bono.  The author is a Zambian woman educated at Oxford and Harvard. 

This is where I first read about her.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Trying to read a couple at once (spring term starts monday, trying to cram it all in before hell starts!).

It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong
The Snows of Rongelap by Sean Connors

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong

Hahaha, that's a great title, Amanda.  I can think of any number of short summaries to describe what this book is all about.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

It IS a fantastic title, isn't it? :) It's about her battle with depression during and after the pregnancy of her first child. She's got a wonderful sense of humor and is a pretty good writer. Loving it so far.
 

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I've read some a handful my favorite novels twice, for nostalgia, and for when I'm sick of uninspired writing and want to revisit a world.

Right now I'm reading Indeh: An Apache Odyssey, by Eve Ball. Very eye-opening. They really need to rewrite the history books with Native accounts of how things went down.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Okay, ladies, but consider that there is also a lack of complete accuracy in tilting the history completely in the opposite direction ala say a Ward Churchill.  (Yesterday I was reading about his attempts to be reinstated as a professor in Colorado) There's a risk of buying into the historic "Noble Savage Syndrome" that dates back at least 300 years -- the fable of peaceable, nature lovers living in idyllic harmony until... the evil interlopers came in and wrecked it all. The counter-fable to that one is the pilgrims and Indians planning Thanksgiving dinner together.  (You do the maize; we'll do the pumpkin pies...)

Somewhere in between lies a greater truth.  Don't shoot me for offering this link.  It's just one little bit of possible balance to a history that has lots of room for error and distortion particularly when tracking the story pre-written languages. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I should know more about native americans, but that subject aside, addressing Ward Churchill directly however-- he is a complete fraud and a scumbag user of those very people !!

In 1492, the only continent measuring up to the definition of wilderness in the Wilderness Act was Antarctica.

It's important to understand that it wasn't just a few naked peaceniks living like animals that we booted out of the way in the name of God and agriculture. They were a large, established civilization that had densely populated everywhere from Canada down to South America since prehistory.

They were no better or worse than us. They exploited the environment and had already hunted some animals species to extinction. They warred with one another almost constantly. They put up a hell of a fight with the colonists, too, even after white diseases wiped a hearty chunk of them out from the South and East.

Taking all that land away wasn't as easy as the history books make it out to be. And the 17th century accounts that those books are based on were little more than promotional travelogues and propaganda for genocide.

Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe we couldn't be the self-sufficient nation we are now without all the broken treaties and false promises. Do the ends justify the means? If that makes it easier to sleep at night...

I mean, how do you explain to schoolchildren what the continent was like before the Columbian Exchange without downplaying the reality of America's rise to power, and then talk about the Holocaust like it was somehow more inhumane? (It wasn't, not by a long shot.)

Check out The Great New Wilderness Debate:

http://books.google.com/books?id=AHKn6SKy1wsC&dq=%22the+great+new+wilderness+debate%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=eOzPSavrNqXmtgOsrtmfAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result

Finished Indeh: An Apache Odyssey last week. Followed it with Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes. Parts of it made me choke up. Like, Mothers slitting their daughters throats to keep them from surrendering and going back to the agency in Oklahoma.  Lots of action, too (the raping and killing rampage through Kansas was intense.)  I'm reading The World of Chief Seattle: How Can One Sell the Air next. It's got Annie's Miss TP speech in it ;)

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

I am still reading Christ the Lord by Anne Rice.  I am also reading some other things as well:

Skin by Ted Dekker

Stephen King goes to the movies

The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska 

The Way Of The Mystics By John Michael Talbot and Steve Rabey

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

Beautiful Children-Charles Bock   A tale of runaways and the Las Vegas porn industry

Love A Wrinkle in Time!  Have the whole series in one volume.