Rose -

I cannot support any form of Pooh, as his creator was instrumental in tarring P.G. Wodehouse as a Nazi sympathizer.

Lobsters - not sure if you're kidding or not, but current educational theory is pretty close to common sense: the more personal connections a student has to something, the more they learn from it. A high-schooler might imagine themselves in Hamlet's shoes, but King Lear's are (in my opinion) a stretch.

To Douchebag -

D'oh! I think I meant Boris Vallejo (who might have been the actual cover artist). I was struck by the resemblance to the poster from National Lampoon's "Vacation". I got the names of those two righteous dudes mixed up. I never thought I'd see the day when old age and brain rot eroded my Dungeons 'N Dragons nerdiness,…

As long as you stopped it about two minutes from the ending, I think we've got a new tentpole of the high school curriculum

Oh most Honorable Douchebag -

Hey waitaminute -
Is that a Frank Frazetta cover?

In middle school, I would go to the public library almost every day, and almost every day I would pass the "B" section and look for Tarzan books I hadn't read. And almost every day, I would see a book spine that said "Burroughs NAKED LUNCH". One day, I opened it and read it. It was not Tarzan. It was definitely not…

the messed-up thing is, the censored posts DO appear in profiles… so future generations will think that I spent an inordinate amount of time sn***ering.

I recently saw a list on Facebook that was supposed to be the 100 most popular books of all time (in Britain, I think) and I'm pretty sure at least three of those authors were on there.

Oh shit I think I was right - I just posted another comment with the UNCENSORED VERSION OF the scandalous "snigga" word, and it's vanished.

Hm - my comments about your missing comment keep going missing too. I'll try a third time, and risk looking foolish if they all appear at once:

Dan - I think it might have gotten censored because of the cruel, cruel racist slur "sn*ggering".

?? I had to read Ivan Denisovich in 7th grade. It was probably a bit early, because all I remember of it is that a guy had to lay bricks, and then a lot of boring stuff happened, and that Russians have a fucked up system of middle and last names.

Sorry, it has no title.

Pari - I think you could pretty much mention anything in the universe, and then say "Salinger wasn't happy about it". What a miserable prick that guy must be.

I always have trouble describing those. Shouldn't they be called "one-way mirrors"? And yet "two-way" somehow works. Maybe we can agree to call them "mindows" or something from now on. No?

Billy Budd is fucking awful. The problem is that it's a medium-length piece that deals with the sea, so bad teachers have latched onto it as a way to say they've taught Melville without actually making people read "Moby-Dick". But it's a horrible, horrible piece of work. And gay as the day is long. I'd recommend…

I realize I didn't describe that well. I think what they do is cut out the snake's heart, drop it in your shot glass, and you chug the whole thing at once.