Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness

Imagine:

You launch a podcast in order to share your passion about books and story with the world. You dedicate your time, money and expertise to the cause.

In return, you expect nothing. In fact, you actively reject opportunities to profit from your enterprise.

As a result of your time and effort, a community of like-minded people is born. It is an extraordinary group of extraordinary people, but it is a group that would have never come together without your efforts. Lifelong friendships flourish. Bicoastal bonds are born. Introverts like those who Susan Cain spoke about in her now-famous TED Talk are given pathways to meeting new people who share their same passion and values. Stories are shared. Books are passed from hungry reader to hungry reader.

It’s a real community that did not exist and then did.

It’s an amazing story. Honestly. 

But you are not finished. Not even close.

You decide to bring the community together in real life. You plan a weekend. You assemble a group of authors. You assemble a group of readers from the community. You most assuredly lose money in the process, but in the process, magic happens.

Authors meet authors, and lifelong friendships are established.

Readers meet readers, and lifelong friendships are established.

Readers meet authors, authors meet readers, and they discover that they are all simply book lovers at heart.

For some, it is the best three days of their year.

Magic.

And you do all this without an eye towards profit or growth or income or fame. You do this simply because you want to spend time meeting people in the community that you have helped to create. You do this because you care about the people in that community.

But you are not finished. Not even close.

The following year you bring the community together again. Not just once but three times, to locations stretching from coast to coast, insisting every step of the way to make these retreats unconscionably affordable even though members of the still-growing community would pay three or four or five times your fee in order to attend and consider it a bargain.

But you prefer to keep the cost low, your stress level high and your workload almost unmanageable because you insist on placing every member of the community ahead of yourself.

Once again friendships are born. Relationships are strengthened. Readers and authors come together in conversation around their mutual love of books.

Magic.

Next year you’ll do it again. The stress and workload will remain the same, but you don’t care. It’s what you do. 

Most astounding of all, you think this is normal. You think that anyone would have done it this way, this how. You don’t think that what you’ve done is terribly special. You think it’s the members of the community who make this special, and while this may be true, you fail to realize that you are the single most important members of the community.

All of this would never have happened without you.

You have done something great. Something amazing. Something rarely done before. 

But you don’t have time to listen to such nonsense. There is a new podcast to record. A new retreat to plan. A new book to read. A new story to recommend.

The people who I have described exist. They are Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, hosts of Books of the Nightstand, a weekly podcast about books. But after reading this, I hope that I have made it clear that their hosting duties are just a tiny part of what they do.

I have spent the last five years publishing books. In that time, my life has grown and changed in ways that I could have never imagined. The blessings that my novels have brought to my life are incalculable.

I rate Ann and Michael’s friendship and my membership in the Books on the Nightstand community among the very best of these blessings.

If you love books, do yourself a favor:

Give their podcast a listen. Become a member of the community. Join us for a retreat. Meet Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, the two people who have made all this possible.

Some of my favorite things

A spiteful Santa, a bratty boy, a dinosaur and poop?

I’m not going to lie. This book sounds great.

Read Shakespeare and avoid children’s theater

On Saturday night I had the honor of joining nine other authors and audiobook narrators for Books on the Nightstand’s Celebration of Authors. Each of us were asked to speak on a topic of our choice (presumably pertaining to books and literature), and I decided just a few minutes before my turn to speak to talk about Shakespeare and the horrors of children’s theater.

Unbeknownst to me, friends and readers of my work were recording my talk and posted it to YouTube shortly thereafter. An audio recording on my talk, as well as the talks of Tayari Jones, Ann Packer, Tupelo Hassman, Simon Vance, Grover Gardner, Cara Black, Sarah McCoy, Adam Johnson, and Lynne Cox, will be available on the Books on the Nightstand podcast in the coming months, but if you can’t wait, you can hear and see my talk from that night.

Hop on Pop indeed

Dr. Seuss cheated on his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel, while she was battling cancer and other related illnesses.

Then she committed suicide.

Less than a year later, Dr. Seuss married his mistress.

A bushel of book recommendations

Whenever I speak at an author event, I make a point of recommending books to the audience. The following are the books that I am recommending on my current book tour:

I loved this book, and I think it is excellent for adults as well kids. It would be a challenging book for even my strongest fifth grade readers, but I wouldn’t hesitate to put it in their hands. The protagonist, Flavia de Luce, is a female detective and chemist of sorts, which adds to its appeal for me. There are never enough female protagonists in the hands of my students.

I’m not normally a fan of graphic novels, but this autobiography of David Small, who experienced a horrific childhood, is amazing. So full of hope despite the bleak landscape of his life. A great choice for book clubs who are looking for a quick read and a conversation starter.

As the father of a three year old, this book has been a blessing. It teaches strategies for converting your baby into the weight required for strength training. Genius!

Every teacher, regardless of grade level or experience, must read this book. There is no better instructive text for teachers.

Peter Benchley’s JAWS was based upon the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Michael Capuzzo’s book is the terrifying account of these attacks.

This book is the first gift that my wife ever gave me. It is the story of Despereaux, a mouse who refuses to conform to mouse society and is forced to pay a steep price for his noncompliance. It is a brilliant story, perfect for adult and children, and it contains one of my favorite quotes of all time:

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”

Reading a Billy Collins poem is often like reading an essay and a story blended into one through the use of perfect language. His poetry is accessible, amusing, enlightening and pitch perfect. I strongly recommend you listen to Collins read his poetry rather than reading it yourself.

Or better yet, do both.

Nora Ephron may be remember best for films like When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail, but her essays are her finest work. This book is no exception. 

Forgetfulness

At last night’s book launch, I read a poem by Billy Collins while recommending one of this books of poetry. I also spoke about the importance of listening to Collins read his own poems and the remarkable visuals that have been applied to some of his work.

This is one of my favorites:

Three packages arrived last week. Only one was creepy and sexually inappropriate.

On Friday the first copy of MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND arrived at my door, wrapped beautifully and accompanied by a note from my editor. It was the kind of note you tuck away into a box and save forever.

The mailman has been especially good to me lately.

Earlier in the week, I received two other interesting packages.

The first was my official title confirming my status as a Lord of the Principality of Sealand. It’s official. As soon as I have an actual office, I’ll be hanging this beauty up in a place where everyone can see it in hopes that they will start referring to me as Lord Dicks.

 

The second package contained a book that I couldn’t resist ordering after seeing it in a list of the Ten Worst Book Covers in the History of Literature. I was expecting the book to be silly and amusing, but it turned out to be creepy, cringe-worthy and overly-explicit. Sadly, I ‘m going to have to stuff it into a drawer in fear that someone might see it and think the worst.

It was clearly not written with the sense of humor needed to pull this kind of thing off.

In truth, I was hoping to order HOW TO AVOID HUGE SHIPS: SECOND EDITION first, but the cheapest copy on Amazon costs more than $100.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that all these women were have sex in front of me?

I’m not sure which part of this column is more stupid:

The part where L.G. from Phoenix asks if it is appropriate for her sister to be reading FIFTY SHADES OF GREY in front of their father (while clearly taking a passive-aggressive swipe at her sibling in the process)… 

… or the part where The Boston Globe’s Robin Abraham asserts in her Miss Conduct column that reading this book in public equates to a public sex act.

Fifty shades of gross! Your poor father was probably only feigning unconsciousness out of embarrassment.

Reading in public is a fine, improving act. As a city dweller, I have always enjoyed the way public reading creates a barrier — yet a permeable one — between the individual and the people surrounding him or her. You have a sense of fellow feeling with readers, don’t you? Oh, look, that guy over there likes the New Yorker, too. Commuters catching up on the newspapers, students plowing through dense academic tomes, “escape” readers with their lurid science fiction or crime paperbacks . . . reading in public gives people a little window into your mind.

And therein lies the, er, rub. The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop. You are forcing other people to witness a sexual act.

There’s so much wrong with this response (and there’s more in the column if you’d like to see her complete answer), the stupidest being:

“Reading in public is a fine, improving act.”

What the hell does that mean? Improving? Is this a column written for nineteenth century girls attending finishing school? Has Abraham declared herself the arbitrator of all public activities? Is it her role to determine which activities are “fine and improving” and which are less so?  

“A fine, improving act?”

Could she sound more pretentious?

And did you notice the way she matches readers to their choice of books?

She is a New Yorker fan, of course.

Students read “dense academic tomes” as if they’ve stepped right out of a Harry Potter film onto the bus. No Kindles or Nooks or iPads for these young people. Dusty, intellectual books for them. 

“Escape” readers read “lurid science fiction and crime paperbacks,” because apparently everything written in these two genres is considered lurid in Abraham’s mind. 

And did you notice her use of quotation marks around the word escape? What’s the point? It’s almost as if Abraham cannot deign to touch the concept of an escape reader without first bracketing the term inside the protective confines of the quotation mark.

God I hate this women.

But of all the stupidity contained within her response, this is the worst:

“The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop.”

Is she serious? I have yet to read FIFTY SHAES OF GREY, but I am having a difficult time envisioning the reading of this book as a sexual act. 

My mother-in-law read the book on her Nook, which means she could’ve been reading it in my presence. I have no way of knowing for sure. 

Am I to believe that my mother-in-law may have been engaging in a sexual act in my presence?

In fact, I have seen dozens of women reading this book in public over the last three months. Am I to believe that each of these women were engaging in an act akin to masturbating in a coffee shop? If so, I wish someone would have told me about this sooner. I would have paid closer attention to these deviants.

Hell, maybe I should’ve called the authorities.

A woman was reading the book on the treadmill beside me last week. I had no idea how shocked or embarrassed I was supposed to feel. No one warned me. Little did I know what this sexual deviant was doing beneath the veneer of a high impact cardio workout.

I feel dirty just thinking about it.

And slightly stupider for reading this ridiculous column.

An added benefit to a great story

Difficulty staying Faithful

I finished reading Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan, and while I enjoyed the bo0k, I have a few quibbles with it as well.

As a Yankees fan, I knew that reading the book would be difficult. The 2004 baseball season was the worst in Yankees history. After taking a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the battle for the pennant, the Yankees became the only team in baseball history to lose the next four games and thus lose the series.

This would be heart wrenching regardless of the opponent, but the fact that it was the Red Sox made it exponentially worse.

Still, I wanted to read this book. I’ve read everything else that Stephen King has ever written, and I adore the man.

While I haven’t quite read everything Stuart O’Nan has written yet, I like what I’ve read so far. More importantly, he was my professor for a writing class at Trinity College, so I got to know him a little bit and liked him a lot.

Even though I knew it would be hard to listen to these men describe the events of that 2004 postseason, I thought that I would be happy for them as well. As a native New Englander who grew up near Boston, I understand the suffering the Sox fans had endured. They deserved to win. At least this is what I had convinced myself of when I dove into the book.

I have three complaints about the book, and they all pertain to O’Nan.

First and most surprising, O’Nan engages in conspiracy mongering several times in the book, implying with all seriousness that baseball might be fixed. A remarkable confluence of events seem (in his mind) to be too dramatic and convenient to be anything but orchestrated, and he says as much more than once. King actually dismisses these claims at one point in the book, and rightly so. Like King, I find this kind of conspiracy theory nonsense to be exactly that:

Nonsense. But I know there is a small but vocal minority of sports fans who feel this way.

Yet when the long haired, loose-lipped Cowboy-up Red Sox of 2004 overcome a 3-0 deficit against a corporate team with twice the payroll that has embraced the moniker of the Evil Empire with enthusiasm, there is not a single mention of conspiracy theories to be found.

This annoyed me. If you’re going to imply that the fix is in several times over the course of the baseball season, you can’t ignore what would seem like one of the most orchestrated moments in the last 100 years of baseball.

Second, O’Nan is less than magnanimous when it comes to the Yankees. King has no love for my beloved team, but he is not mean-spirited about the team, either, He does not call them cheaters or question their character. O’Nan does so repeatedly, and it is not necessary.

Lastly, the nicknames that O’Nan uses when discussing the Red Sox players in the book made me bonkers. Nicknames have always been a part of baseball, but O’Nan takes it to an entirely new and truly bizarre level. Most of my friends are Red Sox fans, but I never heard them refer to Mark Bellhorn as Marky Mark, Pedro Martinez as Petey or David Ortiz as El Hefe (especially since Ortiz already has the often-used nickname Big Papi). It makes no sense. Was O’Nan inventing these nicknames himself, or did he hear some inebriated bleacher creature use these names and co-opted them for the book.

A good nickname is a thing of beauty. Naming your utility infielder after a former Boston-based hip hop musician turned serious actor is an act of stupidity.

Then again, I’m a diehard fan of the New York Yankees who died hard in October of 2004, so perhaps I am biased.  

Wedding reboot: Best wedding response ever

My wife and I will be celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary later this month. A couple days ago I was writing about the hora, and it prompted me to go back and look back at some old posts that I wrote about our wedding on a blog that no long exists.

Though the blog was deleted more than five years ago under rather unfortunate circumstances, I’m so glad that the content from that blog was saved. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading about our wedding day. 

As our anniversary approaches, I’ve decided to re-post some of those wedding memories here as a means of preserving them as well as sharing them with readers.

Here is the second of these posts:

__________________________________________

In the spirit of creativity, here is the prize winning wedding response card, sent to us by bridesmaid and groomsman Charles and Justine.

Knowing that I am a Dickens fan, they sent this response to our wedding invitation:

Charles was disappointed to find out that I didn't own a copy of David Copperfield.

Nevertheless, two days before the wedding, I finally got around to finding a copy of the novel and looking up the passage, in order to determine if we would be a groomsman and bridesmaid shy of our expected number.

The passage reads:

It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should like that.

And no, we did not honor their food request.

I hate the Red Sox, but I love these guys

I’m listening to the book Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan. It’s essentially a double-entry journal that chronicles the Red Sox for one season. It’s full of traditional journal entries, email exchanges, summaries of phone calls between the two men, and recollections of games they attended alone and together.

Even though I am a Yankees fan, I’m enjoying the book a lot, though I suspect I will enjoy it much less once I reach the postseason entries. By some stroke of genius, King and O’Nan chose to work on this book during the season in which the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918.

Lucky bastards.

But having grown up in Massachusetts, I spent a lot of time around Red Sox fans, so listening to what King and O’Nan have to say about the team and the game of baseball is a little bit like going home.

I also like both writers a lot.

O’Nan taught at creative writing at Trinity College during my time there, and I was fortunate enough to squeeze in one class with him before he left. I’ve heard him speak a few times since then, and I’ve read several of his books, including most recently LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER. Years ago I read his nonfiction account of the Hartford Circus Fire, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Stephen King has become a bit of a hero to me, for several reasons.

Growing up without very few books in my home, it wasn’t until I was granted my own library card that I really began reading and falling in love with books, and many of those first books were written by Stephen King. NIGHT SHIFT, DIFFERENT SEASONS, THE SHINING, and CUJO were just a few of the novels I read that first summer, and I loved every one of them.

Eventually I would go on to read all of King’s work, including IT, which I have read at least a dozen times, and his Dark Tower series, which I consider a genuine masterpiece.

Two decades later, it would be another one of King’s books, ON WRITING, that would inspire me to continue writing when the possibility of a writing career felt impossible and hopeless. The first half of ON WRITING is an autobiographical account of King’s life as a writer, including his very humble beginnings as a short story writer for men’s magazines.  The image of Stephen King siting in the laundry room of his trailer, shoved against the washing machine, unable to afford medicine for his sick children, sent me back to the laptop ready and willing to conquer the beast.

At the age of ten, Stephen King opened my mind to the world of books and reading, and thirty years later, I have now joined his fraternity. It’s an incredible feeling. Sort of like idolizing a ballplayer as a kid and then finding yourself playing alongside that same player someday.

In reading FAITHFUL, I’ve learned a few things about King that I did not know, specifically in terms of his approach to time management. It turns out that he and I have a lot in common in this regard.

While watching the Red Sox game, King has a book in his lap, and in between innings, he will read. He estimates that he can read about 40 pages during the average baseball game.

I have also been known to do this, in addition to spending commercial breaks listening to audiobooks and podcasts or pounding away at the laptop. From time to time I’ve also been known to listen to an audiobook while watching television, especially when the show is somewhat mindless and predictable.

Even more impressive, King writes about how he will listen to the ballgame on his car radio but switch over to an audiobook in between innings, timing the two minute commercial break with his wrist watch.

Similarly, I can be found at the gym with two sets of headphones when running on the elliptical. One is a wireless pair connected to my iPhone, through which I am undoubtedly listening to an audiobook or podcast. The second pair is attached to the machine so I can listen to the television affixed to it. I will switch between these two headphones during a workout in order to take advantage of commercial breaks, which has caused more than one fellow gym rat to stare at me in confusion. Yesterday, for example, I was watching the replay of the Yankees game from the day before as I worked out, and similar to King, I would switch headphones between innings and listen to my book, which happened to be King and O’Nan discussing the Red Sox “June swoon.”

Fear not, boys. Things will turn around for the Sox soon enough.

I’ve often thought that if Stephen King and I had the chance to get to know one another, we would be fast friends. While this is unlikely to ever happen, I do hope that he reads one of my books someday, which isn’t asking much considering the number of books the man reads on a yearly basis. I wouldn't even need to know if he liked the book or not. Just knowing that the author who inspired a ten year old boy to read and a thirty year old man to write picked up one of my novels would be enough for me.

I judged this book by its cover (and its title) because I'm an idiot

I’m an idiot. For years my wife has told me to read Sharon Creech’s Newbury Award winning novel Walk Two Moons. I adore many of Sharon Creech’s other books (I can’t read Love That Dog without getting teary-eyed) and my wife has never steered me wrong in terms of literature, but I have never been able to get past the less-than-enticing title of the book and the even more unappealing cover.

Like I said, I’m an idiot.

My students became aware of my idiocy in regards to this book this year, so one of them brought in a copy of the book with its new cover:

It's a much better cover, but still, Walk Two Moons? Not a great title.

I really am an idiot.

“Luke, I am your father.”

The book, Darth Vader and Son, was a fine Father’s Day gift in its own right. But this made it the best gift ever:

Peeping Tom

My favorite photo from last week’s Book Expo America was Erin Morgenstern’s Instagram of the advanced readers copies she acquired while at the Expo.

Erin Morgenstern is the author of THE NIGHT CIRCUS, a book that I enjoyed very much. It is especially thrilling when an author who I respect and admire a great deal is interested in reading one of my books.

Even though I’ve published two novels and have a third on the way, I still feel very much like an outsider when it comes to the publishing world. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who is peeking through the windows into the industry rather than stepping through its door.

Moments like seeing my book in Erin Morgenstern’s pile bring me a bit closer to that proverbial door.

A moment that makes up for all the poop

As a parent, you never know when your child is going to do something that will cause your heart to soar (or sink). One minute your child is lying about the obvious poop in her diaper and the next minute she is breaking your heart with an act of unplanned grace and generosity.

Like yesterday, when Clara said, “I’ll be right back!” and ambled up the stairs to her bedroom. She returned a couple minutes later with a handful of books, plopped herself down on the floor next to her sleeping brother, and began reading to him for the first time.

It was one of those perfect parental moments that I will remember for a long, long time. 

Four audiobooks: One I loved, two I can’t wait to listen to, and one that annoys the hell out of me.

June is Audiobook Month!

With this in mind, I stopped by my local Barnes and Noble yesterday to pick up Nichole Bernier’s debut novel, THE UNFNISHED WORK OF ELIZABETH D. (not yet available on audio) and decided to take a moment and browse the audiobook section as well.

Truth be told, I purchase almost all of my audiobooks through Audible. It’s much easier to download the books digitally rather than uploading the CDs onto the computer, but I’ve been known to purchase audiobooks in their physical form as gifts for friends and family, so I find myself in the audiobook sections of bookstores quite frequently.

I pulled these four books from the shelf for comment:

The first is THE ILIAD, which I have actually listened to on audio several times. In addition to listening to new titles on audio, I love to listen to books that I have read previously, and especially books like THE ILIAD that I was required to read several times in college as part of the curriculum and now want to listen for pure enjoyment.

If you’ve been afraid to read THE ILIAD because it’s ancient and large and daunting, don’t be. Try listening to it on audio. You will not be disappointed.

The second is UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand, which is a book I purchased from Audible almost a year ago after listening to a book club discuss it as a possible choice for the coming month. I'm also a fan of listening to nonfiction on audio, since I find it easier to jump in and out nonfiction regardless of how long I go between listening. If I am listening to fiction, I feel like I need to listen every day, and oftentimes more than once a day, in order for the story and the characters to remain fresh in my mind. It’s not impossible, but if my life is especially hectic, my podcasts have piled up and I don’t have time time to listen regularly, fiction on audio can be a challenge for me.

I have yet to listen to UNBROKEN, but it is near the top of my audio pile. I saw a segment about the book on CBS Sunday Morning recently and am looking forward to it all over again.

Enter video caption here

The third is WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks, a book that I desperately wanted to listen to since the book, an oral history of a fictional Zombie War, seems to be perfectly suited for audio. But for reasons that will always baffle me, the publisher, Random House Audio, produced the book in abridged form only.

Abridged? Who the hell wants an abridged version of any book? Why does the industry continue to produce abridged versions when everyone listener I know despises them? I don’t get it.

I DON’T GET IT!

Random House also went out of their way to cast an impressive list of narrators for the book, including Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, John Turturro, Alan Alda, Becky Ann Baker and more. Yet they decided to abridge the damn thing, cutting these talented voices short!

I can’t tell you how annoyed I am by this decision.

I plan on reading the book, but I feel like it’s an opportunity wasted.

The last audiobook is ROOM by Emma Donoghue, a book that my upcoming novel, MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, has been compared to repeatedly. I have yet to read ROOM for this very reason, but I made it my Audible pick for May and now have it loaded onto my iPhone. It is currently in a metaphysical battle with UNBROKEN for my next listen.

A recommendation, a quandary and a stupid book that belongs in the trash

The books that are most popular with our three year old daughter eventually find their way off the shelf and into a wicker basket in her bedroom. As these books fall out of favor, they eventually make their way back to the shelf, often to regain favor again months later. 

Comments on three books currently residing in this basket:

THE RECOMMENDATION

10 MINUTES TILL BEDTIME by Peggy Rathmann: I cannot say enough about this book. It’s essentially a story that teaches children to count down from ten, but the illustrations are tremendous. Clara and I have read this book more than twenty times, and I am still finding details in the illustrations that make every page new, interesting and fun. It’s the kind of book that both parents and children can mutually enjoy.

THE QUANDRY

WHEN YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE by Laura Joffe Numeroff

My daughter loves these books, including this first one which launched the series, but I have never understood one thing about this book:

Why does the mouse use scotch tape to stick his picture to the refrigerator? It makes no sense. Why not a magnet? Has anyone in the history of modern-day refrigeration ever thought it a good idea to affix a piece of paper to a refrigerator with tape?

THE BOOK I WANT TO THROW IN THE TRASHCAN

I’m not going to say the name of this book, because although I despise it with every fiber of my being, I’m not sure how we acquired it and do not want to risk offending the person who gave us this book.

It’s a non-fiction children’s book about ballet, including descriptions of ballet practice and recitals. There’s far too much text on each page for someone as young as my daughter, but it’s a series of photographs in the middle of the book that I find most objectionable:

Little girls, approximately 5-7 years old, plastered with enough makeup to make them look like sad, elderly children.

Rarely have I ever seen grown women wear the amount of lipstick and eye shadow that these little girls are wearing.

What kind of parent thinks this is a good idea?

Clara loves ANGELINA BALLERINA, so when she found this book on her shelf last week, she was thrilled. But since there is too much text on a page for her age level, I’ve been inventing a story of a more appropriate length to go along with the photographs, including sentences like:

“Look at those girls wearing all that makeup. How yucky. Those little girls must be so sad. Little girls should never wear so much makeup. It’s gross.”

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wanted to throw a book in the garbage, but this might be the one. At the very least, I plan on removing this book from my home as soon as possible lest these clown-like images of these sad children become ingrained in my daughter’s mind.

What’s in a name? Several literary references.

It’s a boy! In case you haven’t heard, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy yesterday named Charles Wallace Dicks.

Charlie was born at 3:09 PM. He is 7 pounds, 1 ounce and 18 inches long.

We chose Charlie’s name for a number of reasons.

To start, we liked the name Charles a lot. We liked the old feel of the name and the way it seems to match well with his big sister’s name (Clara). I’m also an enormous fan of Charles Dickens (I have three plants in my classroom named Pip, Philip and Pirrip), so the connection to this literary giant didn’t hurt.

We also love the nickname Charlie. My favorite moment during Charlie’s delivery happened just seconds after Charlie was born. With The Byrd’s Turn Turn Turn playing in the background, a nurse asked us what his name was, and Elysha called out, “Charlie!” When I heard her say his name aloud, in what I can only characterize as the most beautiful singsong voice I have ever heard, I knew we had chosen the right one.

It was one of those moments I will never forget.

As for the Wallace, a couple literary thoughts guided our decision.

First, Charles Wallace is the protagonist in Madeleine L’Engle’s WRINKLE IN TIME series, which are books that Elysha and I both adored as children. In fact, I had recently expressed hesitancy in re-reading the books as an adult, in fear that they won’t hold up to my fond memoires of them, but I guess I have no choice now.

Elysha and I are also fans of the poet Wallace Stevens, who lived and worked in Hartford, the city where Charlie was born. We especially love the poem 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and have taught it to our students every year. Every year, I discover new depth hidden within the poem, and I hope I can say the same about my son someday.

Our perfect little boy, Charles “Charlie” Wallace Dicks!

Hate reading and hate watching: What a stupid, disingenuous waste of time

In case you aren’t familiar with the terms, hate reading is the idea that a reader can despise a book and everything it stands for but still find pleasure in reading it all the way through. Please note that this is very different from reading a book that you expected to love but did not. Hate reading is actively choosing to read a book that you expect to despise under the premise that you will enjoy hating it.

For example, I've known several people who have told me that they read 50 Shades of Gray for this very reason.

The same concept has been applied to television and film as well. With the start of The Bachelor, I've seen many people on social media explain how they only watch the show because they hate it.

I have been thinking about the concept of hate reading and hate watching and have arrived at a conclusion. Specifically, if you are in the business of hate reading or hate watching, I believe that you probably fall into one of two categories:

1. You are utilizing the concept of hate reading or hate watching to conveniently explain your consumption of content that you genuinely enjoy but consider beneath your typical standards of good taste. It is a dishonest and hypocritical attempt to mitigate any potential embarrassment over the pleasure that one is garnering from what he or she has deemed low brow content.
2. You have far too much free time on your hands. If you have hours to spend reading or watching content that you knowingly despise, you should seriously reconsider the way in which you are utilizing the precious minutes of your life. With all the great literature and film in this world, it strikes me as idiotic to spend even a minute consuming content that you know you will hate.

Despite my position on hate watching, my wife and I  inadvertently hate watched a show this week called America’s Got Talent. Before switching over to Mad Men on the DVR, we caught about 45 seconds of the show, which turned out to be about 35 seconds longer than we should have given this piece of trash. We watched a troop of mimes and a guitarist get booed off the stage by an exceedingly angry audience and immediately felt like we needed to take a shower.

But it left me wondering how anyone could spend even a minute hate watching something with so much great film and television available, especially now that it’s possible to watch almost any television program or film ever produced from the comfort of your couch, and with the touch of a button.

I simply cannot accept that someone would read page after page or watch episode after episode of content that they loathe without also thinking that choice either utterly stupid or a pathetic attempt to mitigate embarrassment over something they love but feel they shouldn’t.

Either admit that you genuinely enjoy The Bachelor and 50 Shades of Gray, or acknowledge that your life is so empty of meaningful pursuits that you have the kind of time on your hands to watch a television show that you genuinely despise.