Month: November 2005
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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha ChristieBerkley, 2004 (originally 1934)
Hercule Poirot is clever and amusing, and it’s such fun to watch the drama of this book unfold: to get little clues here and there, but not to realize the full picture until Poirot explains it all at the end.
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Necklace of Kisses by Francesca Lia BlockHarperCollins, 2005
Weetzie Bat is all grown up (Cherokee and Witch Baby are in college!) and life with her secret-agent lover-man isn’t as perfect as it should be. So she packs a suitcase and heads off to the pink hotel, where, of course, she meets all sorts of interesting people, and all sorts of strange things happen.…
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Sad Little Breathing Machine by Matthea HarveyGraywolf Press, 2004
Poems filled with twists of meanings, wordplay that depends on the break of a line (“Little was left of the forest./Large was ten miles ahead.”). Images that resonate (ducks glowing softly in the night, snow falling between trains). Wit and subtlety and a little bit of sadness. As entire pieces, the prose poems are my…
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On Subbing: The First Four Years by Dave RocheMicrocosm Publishing, 2005 (2nd edition)
I was reading this on the train, and a man came over to me and asked something about the title. Internally, I rolled my eyes: no, it’s not that kind of subbing. In this slim volume, Dave tells of his experiences over the course of four years as a substitute educational assistant (EA) in special…