The Mysterious Benedict Society

Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society makes you feel smart.

It's about gifted kids solving problems.

I was so charmed by it that I read it in two days. Here's an excerpt.

Click Here!!!!!

Moving Comics!

Sometimes I try to write intelligently for this blog, sometimes I don't. HERE IS A TIME WHEN I DON'T, I JUST SHARE SOME AWESOME.

http://vimeo.com/9847999

That is a link to some wonderful person who has animated a few Kate Beaton comics. They're pretty rad.

I just thought you guys should know.

Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden

Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) is a wholly remarkable book. I cannot explain my fascination with it clearly, but (to give you an idea of how much I liked it) I read it in two days. It made two statements about pain that I thought were interesting:

p. 405: "I couldn't help imagining I'd seen on his face some of the shock I myself was feeling. I didn't know if the shock was really there-- and I doubted it was. But when we feel pain, even the blossoming trees seem weighted with suffering to us; and in just the same way, after seeing the Chairman there . . . well, I would have found my own pain reflected on anything I'd looked at."

p. 419: "Though I must say, I lived in that contented state a long while before I was finally able to look back and admit how desolate my life had once been. I'm sure I could never have told my story otherwise; I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it."