I forgot about these

Also recently read: Song of Susannah (Dark Tower VII), by Stephen King. A lovely Bookcrosser rescued me from the black hole of the library mending room by sending a copy of this my way. Stephen King writing himself as a character...that's really trippy, and this has been a pretty bizarre series up to this point. I wonder what his family thought: "You're going to do what? Write about us...as us?" It must be really surreal to write about yourself as a character, encountering your characters, being told by them that you have to write the story up to the point that they are now acting... This book definitely was a wrapping up loose ends / setting up for the final book sort of story, but I didn't mind. I'm eager to see how it all resolves. And after all that hype about Susannah going to have the baby, I'm disappointed we didn't even see it in this book. Oh well. I guess that's King's way of being cruel.

Ragged Dick, by Horatio Alger. Read for my Adolescent Lit class, where our prof wants us to have a sense of historicity, what kind of books were out there...either for teenagers or about teenagers, before YA lit started as a specifically marketed genre for teens with The Outsiders in 1967. If this is an example of literature for teens / kids, I don't know why they kept reading. Not only is the story overly moralistic, a rags-to-riches account of a young bookblack who becomes respectable, but there are glaring inconsistencies. For example, in the beginning of the book, Dick doesn't mind being dirty, but as soon as he's met the rich man who encourages him and gives him some money, the narrator claims that he is accustomed to a wash every morning, but did not have the opportunity to do so on the streets. The moral of the story seems to be that if you have honor and the right connections, you can succeed. Interestingly enough, I saw an article on Bookcrossing which says that Alger's hometown is considering dropping his name from their street fair because of accusations of pedophilia. Alger did quietly resign from his clergy post... And it would put quite an interesting spin on the message that if you're nice to older rich men, they'll help you.

Books read this month: 11
Books read this year: 80