No books for me

All I've been reading lately has been student assignments.  I want to be reading The Left Hand of Darkness, which I found at a used bookstore and am looking at for a course I'm helping a professor prep.  A course I should be helping my professor prep.  I would be helping if I weren't so buried.  (I would much rather be prepping it!!!!!)

If you can't tell, I'm pretty down about this class taking over my life so unexpectedly, which is weird, since I usually set my expectations so low that anything other than a disaster seems rather pleasant.  My expectations about the teaching resources that would be provided for me for this class were set too high.  The class is a huge, time-consuming disaster for me.  See what happens when you don't set your expectations low enough!  :)

The essay about science fiction in the introduction of my copy of The Left Hand of Darkness was so elegant and clear and simple and LeGuin that it was excellent.  It was especially stunning after the essays I've been grading lately.  Who knows?  Some day, one of my students could be writing as beautifully as LeGuin.  I wish I could help them all improve without killing myself in the process, but that is another example of an expectation that will probably only hurt me.

This too shall pass.  There will always be books to look forward to.  So for now, onward.

New Terry Pratchett Book!!!!!!!! (I'm a little excited.)

Yes, it's another Tiffany book, no doubt chock full of Wee Free Men and hilarious regional dialog!  It's called I Shall Wear Midnight, and it comes out September 28th!  Eeee!

You might want to pre-order it now.  You can get it for a smidge over $9 at Borders and a couple of other places (and if you go to the store and pre-order it, you can get free shipping), but that won't last very long.  Oh, I'm so happy!

Any fall releases that have you giddy?

It's ALIVE!!!!

So, once again I dropped out of sight.  In honor of my first anniversary of blogging, my computer died.  Eventually a kind friend resuscitated it, and now I am almost caught up enough to get back to blogging.  So you'll likely hear from me for real this weekend.  Until then . . .