I love the idea of "summer reading." Is that meant to imply that you should be reading something different during these months, or that you should be reading, as if this is the only time you should bother doing so? This next item on the Reading List came up by sheer coincidence, but still serves as a sharp contrast to the expected...
Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, whom I last read (Brothers Karamazov) in 2006, so I've been relishing this moment for five years (yeesh! didn't seem so long until I laid it out plain!). Just goes to show that good things don't have to come all at once, or that, as I have hopefully proven at least to myself in that time, that there are many other equally fine pieces of literature, and writers, available. And so again, I wonder why so many people have such a hard time finding things to read (as I'm sure I've remarked in the past, I work in a bookstore, so I know), or why so damned many English teachers have fucked books so badly. YOU CANNOT TEACH THE CREATIVE ARTS BY ROTE. Okay, so maybe a little of that does work with, say, music or art, but as books go, you simply cannot force them, or your interpretations, down the throats of your students, or they will hate more than relish the experience. Don't you see how that is a bad thing? crime and punishment indeed...
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