90. thurber carnivals

The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber
When I first saw this book, in my mom's costco shopping cart, i thought i recognized the name james thurber.  i thought that surely this was one of those books about an author's crazy tales or life from the perspective of another author with creative licenses..... but no, this is thurber's self-made little carnival.  before i picked it up i thought "that thurber guy must be pretty whimsical to name his collection of short stories after a carnival."  i was correct.  he is whimsical, indeed.  while i can't say i understood any of his little "comics," his short stories were great.  i especially enjoyed the one about their childhood dog that bit people because he was in a bad humor.  i love this author!  he writes about dogs as if they are humans and captures their personality quirks perfectly.  how can you not like someone that is able to do that?

The Scarlet Letter.... Number 40!

The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne

I will admit that I have yet to read many "classics" from America's literature canon.  The Scarlet Letter is one of those books that I wasn't force-fed in high school, and I somehow avoided it in ALL of my college lit classes.  Instead, I was introduced to Hawthorne by way of "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Birthmark," and "Rappacini's Daughter."  These were all incredible short stories that I reccomend to anyone, therefore I was very enthusiastic upon cracking the spine of The Scarlet Letter.  Therefore I am a very unsatisfied reader.  Hawthorne's short stories are so inspiring and enthralling and then he throws this crock of over-elegant Puritan psychological mind shit our way.  I don't mind so much, except that this is how most people are introduced to him.  He has, in a sense, put a scarlet letter of B (for boring) on himself to all high school students that are given a copy of The Scarlet Letter  to read involuntarily.  And then they are unaware that he is actually a pretty good author that writes short stories, not long, tedious, melodramatic ones.  Anyway, that's about all i have to say for tonight.  Hopefully I can make a change to the high school curricula and give my students "Rappacini's Daughter" rather than The Scarlet Letter and give Hawthorne an updated image to the next generation.