1. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
2. Harry Potter Series, J. K. Rowling
3. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
4. The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
5. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
6. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog..., Mark Haddon
8. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
9. My Sister's Keeper, Jodi ( Read more... )

"We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook ( Read more... )

What is writing for? Writers -- unlike dentists, bricklayers and other practical folk -- are always being asked why they do what they do; asked, in effect, to prove their usefulness. It's an odd question, because language and mathematics are the two most potent and useful tools human beings have ever invented ( Read more... )

"Here was American high school writing at its best - raw, real, urgent, lucid, brief, lying." ~Frank McCourt

"...If it's in you to climb you must--there are those who must lift their eyes to the hills--they can't breathe properly in the valleys. God help them if there's some weakness in them that prevents their climbing...This child has--what I have never had and would have made any sacrifice to have. But `the gods don't allow us to be in their debt'--she ( Read more... )

Why is sleep so elusive?

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If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die. ~Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. ~Frost

Do you really care to know me?
Even the boundless dark secrets of my fear?
When human touch feels like a burning brand,
Then you will know what brought me here.
~Brunus Edwardii