Recommended Reading

Sara Femenella, one of my former students (from almost ten years ago...good grief), has a terrific poem in the current issue of The Normal School. I like the Normal School not just for their great content but because each issue costs five dollars, which seems to me a rational price for a literary magazine. You should buy your issue now.

On Book Collecting

I own a lot of books. But I've never really thought of this as collecting; it's just my version of living. But every now and then--like today when it occurred to me that I own signed copies of things by three Nobel Prize winners (Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, and the latest Mario Vargas Llosa)--that I could have a focused collection. Maybe that would be fun. But maybe it would just be shopping. I don't know. Just thinking about it I'm suddenly regretting missed opportunities to get Doris Lessing, Seamus Heaney and Kenzaburo Oe to sign things for the collection I could have had. I think it would just give me anxiety. Do you collect?