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> I have a little bit of a selfish reason for posting... I did mention somewhere that summer is really, really long yes? And I know that the people in the forum are very smart, and that they read a lot according to the Reader Poll. For those of you who will post in irritation that there are other forum posts about the same thing that I am asking about which I could refer to instead of bothering you all I have one thing to say: Please, please, please with sugar on top, just one more time for me because I'm so very cute and sweet?

Please take this in the spirit it's intended, but for the record, I'm not responding to your post because 1) I'm particularly smart or 2) you're so very cute and sweet. Maybe we both are, but I don't need to be flattered, or appealed to on the basis of "cuteness" to talk about books! I don't know, maybe there's a hint in there about why your posts get deleted?

Anyway, here are some I've liked:

By Sheri S. Tepper:
_Beauty_ (Fantasy)
_The Family Tree_ (SF/Fantasy)

By Amy Tan:
_The Joy Luck Club_
_The Kitchen God's Wife_

By Michaela Roessner:
_Vanishing Point_ (SF)

By William Sleator:
_House of Stairs_ (SF) (you might need to look for this in the juvenile or young adult section of the library, but don't let that put you off--it's fairly sophisticated and thought-provoking

By T.R. Pearson:
_A Short History of a Small Place_
One of the funniest books I've ever read; but warning, it takes time to build up. Best read in short bursts. A very "Southern" story.

By Russell Miller:

_Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day__ (non-fiction) This doesn't fit into your "prefered reading" category, but I still say, take a chance and read it. I found it totally fascinating to hear about this pivotal day in history in the words of the people who were there. A lot of them were not much older than you are.




I dunno if you would care, but the Valedictorian gave a really great speech. I knew him the whole year, and he was a really awesome guy. Very smart, and sort of cute *blush*... but anyway, he did a really great speech. It was all about this race of aliens which he invented with a friend of his who I also know. He talked about how fun it was to have his own race of space aliens, and then he talked about how fun it was to write a song for band which got played in front of everyone. The whole point of why this was cool was that he didn't mention the future of the graduating class at all. He just talked about the cool things in his life and ended it by saying that he liked pickles. It was one of the least boring Valedictorian speeches I have had to listen to in years. Does anyone else think people get too involved in graduation speeches a lot and make them overly boring? If not I guess that you probably wouldn't understand why his speech was very funny and actually worth talking about...
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If I were sitting there listening to his speech, I probably would have been laughing too. But I would also be saying to myself, here is a young man, who obviously has a lot going for him, (or he wouldn't be valedictorian, right?) and he has a once in a lifetime opportunity here to address people presumably important to him (parents and peers)--and yet,he choses to be *comedic* over being *insightful*. GAH. Is there no sense of "occasion" anymore? Is the worst sin being "boring"? Are we turning into a nation of entertainers and the must-be-entertained?


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> Mel"Not very interesting, but really bored. Could use a good book to shut her up *hint, hint*"anie

koala"not really as grumpy as she probably sounds here"mom