Before you mail it, Elizabeth, let me email you my return address. We used to live at another number on this same highway and I caught myself earlier this week writing the incorrect return address on a letter. So I wanna be sure i didn't flub it up on your package as well.

Yeah, people have various and sundry notions about marking up a book. For me, writing in a book is necessary. Reading is an interactive experience. I want to engage with a text and do so immediately, right there beside what I'm reading. If I make notes in a notebook, there's a disconnect. Not to mention the fact that throughout the course of taking classes and then teaching, I've read some books upwards of ten times in an academic setting. It's interesting to me to chart the progression of my reactions to the text. I like to see where I've changed and where I haven't. Plus, it keeps stuff in the same place. I do make notes in a notebook as well, but the really important stuff goes in the marginalia.

I hope you like at least some of the stories in the book. :)