Book Blogs and Les Libres for Sanity's Sake!

On this most incredible of cool and beautiful pre-autumnal days, I spent all my time hashing and mashing a syllabus for the first online course I'm about to teach at a new (to me) college. I'm still teaching the same course load at my regular college; this will be an additional course that I hope will give me some experience in the world of "distance education."

Please notice in my "Blogs of Substance" list to the left that I've added a new blog. While I was taking a brief break from my arduous, nerve-wracking ordeal today, I visited many book blogs, including "His Futile Preoccupations," a thought-provoking and amusing book blog that I believe many of you will find interesting. I notice Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat is already well acquainted with Guy.

Is this book-blogging world a small one, do you think? It's incredibly diverse, I know that. I've been trying to figure out where Guy hails from, and I'm going out on a limb to say perhaps somewhere in far western Canada. Ridiculous of me to guess. I'll let you know. I think a blogger's origins do matter as far as individual perspectives are concerned. Wherever Guy lives, he mentions being an ex-pat, and I assumed from the context that he meant he was a British ex-pat. But I'm probably wrong! Oh, no, here I go again. 

Gosh, during my mania-driven, full-frontal attack to get back into classroom mode after my semester-long, broken-leg hiatus, I need to seek out more blogs, especially during these late August weeks while many bloggers are on vacation. After several hours of slogging away, I have a desperate need for literate diversion! And, gosh again, I'm being terribly verbose today. Syllabus-writing does that to me.

As far as les libres are concerned, I'm going to be hosting a Bernhard Schlink Week. All details have yet to be determined, but it will take place this fall, in October, I believe, but perhaps in early November. And I will be posting all details in the next few weeks.

I'm treasuring every sentence of A Story of a Life by the Israeli writer Aahron Appelfeld. I urge you to read it, especially if Holocaust memoirs have turned you off in the past. This memoir is a unique experience!