The one good thing about getting up early in the morning is that there is some extra time to read. This morning I finished SHELF DISCOVERY by Lizzie Skurnick (Avon, 2009). Subtitled THE TEEN CLASSICS WE NEVER STOPPED READING, this is a collection of "book reports" on some of the all time favorite books of my (and I suspect your) childhood. Teen classics? A good many of these are books for children and not for teens, but they are all titles I knew well from firsthand experience. I loved reading Skurnick's thoughts/reviews/essays on them and found myself nodding in agreement so often. This book serves as an important reminder of the role books play in our lives. It also serves to remind us that these powerful books remain for a reason. They have become classics not just because they are still in print but because they still speak to new generations of readers.

Hubby, the residents of the back bedroom, newly minted college grad and her fiance and I are in San Antonio for a short vacation before it is time to go back to work and school. On the drive over, we listened to this audio from Tantor. It has a 2006 copyright but since the movie is just being released, the audio is being re-released.




I adored F. Scott Fitzgerald as an undergrad English major but I must admit his short stories never came up in any of the lit classes I took (and I took more than I needed just for fun). He is an author who is absolutely brilliant in audio format. It emphasizes his wordsmithing, his incredibly wrought similes and metaphors. I was gasping at several points in the 4 stories in this collection.

I will be eager to see how the movie handles the "Benjamin Button" story with Brad Pitt (who does not fit the image in my head at all). I suspect it will be a bit more fleshed out and perhaps take some different directions. In "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz," Fitzgerald proves his mettle as a writer not only of satire but of fantasy as well. Two other stories round out this terrific audiobook. I really think this would be useful for teachers who want to introduce high school students to the work of Fitzgerald in an accessible manner.