For the past two years, since deciding to try for a baby, I’ve undergone several adjustments to my thyroid hormone: first to get myself to a level where I was able to conceive and carry a baby, then to keep the baby safe from miscarriage, then to re-balance the hormones from pregnancy and nursing. I’m […]
harry potter
Thoughts From Inside an MRI
On Monday I had my neck MRI. It took about 40 minutes, including a brief pause in the middle so they could inject me with contrast (more on that later). All weekend, I thought about how I could occupy my mind while I was in there. I had several MRIs during the cancer-time, and my […]
The Lesson of the Boggart
This morning I was listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and I had one of those (all too frequent) moments when I thought, “J.K. Rowling is a genius.” The scene I was listening to was the first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson taught by Professor Lupin, where he introduces Harry and […]
The Casual Vacancy
It took me a few nights of steady reading, but I finally finished J.K. Rowling’s new book, The Casual Vacancy. I want to preface this review with a few disclaimers. 1. I did not read any other reviews, either before or after reading this book, because I didn’t want them clouding my own opinion. (I did accidentally […]
Saluting Literature at the Olympics
How many of you watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? If you did, can you guess what my favorite segment was? I loved the salute to children’s literature. I think it’s wonderful that Britain values its literary history so highly as to devote part of their worldwide stage to it. Before tonight, I hadn’t […]
The Rise of Young Adult Fiction
The other day, while reading the NY Times online, I stumbled across this brief, interesting article by Patricia McCormick, a young adult fiction author: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/ The article begins: If “Harry Potter” made it safe for grown-ups to read kids’ books, “The Hunger Games” has made it cool. Why are so many adults reading young adult […]