I've been asked to teach again this fall -- the course I taught last year, the one I turned down this year because the time slot was untenable. It will mean leaving my house before 6 a.m. two days a week. It may mean finding daycare for AJ two mornings a week. But I'll be home in time to pick him up from school, most days, at least. And the course schedule is configured exactly the same way as it was when I taught last, so it would be pretty much a no-brainer if I wanted it to be. I'm probably going to say yes. Yes to the fun of teaching, yes to a lot of craziness in my schedule and for my family, yes to feeling like I'm back among the living career-wise, yes to screwing up my graduation timetable yet again. Hopefully not too much, though. It's those hopefullys that are a little scary.

Also, I'm a little alarmed from how fast my brain gets from "ohmygod I need to order textbooks if I want them to arrive in time" to "ohmygod I don�t have any shoes to wear that I can stand and teach in and also trudge through December slush in and I need tights to keep my legs warm under those autumn skirts." I mean, really. I don't even like to shop. I swear.

Since my brain is occupied with other things, I give you a meme today. A meme about books? How could I refuse? Thanks to freshhell for this one.

One book that changed your life: Only one? That's so hard to say. The first thing that comes to mind is Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. I'm not sure I could tell you exactly how it changed my life, but it changed the way I think about books and writing. Every time I read it, it's a different book to me.

One book I've read more than once: I read just about everything I like more than once. That's why the house looks like a frickin' bookstore � I can't stand to rid myself of anything, because I'll probably read it again. But there is one book I read every year, largely for its nostalgia value. I start Little Women every Christmas Eve. I've been doing this since childhood when I used to get so excited about Christmas that I'd wake up really early. We had some fixed time before which we were not allowed to leave our rooms (6? 7 a.m.?), so one year I decided what I needed was to read the longest book in my room. Our house looked like a library then too, but most of the books were downstairs. Little Women was the longest book in my room and it fittingly begins on Christmas Eve. And so a personal tradition was begun. I think I've read it at least once a year for about 30 years.

One book I want to take on a desert island: This is always a difficult question. I want something with a lot of material to work with, lots of stories contained in one volume, something to inspire but also something to comfort, something that wears well with rereading. For the first part, I thought of James Joyce's Ulysses. Finally, while alone on that desert island, I might have the time and energy to figure out what�s up with that. All previous attempts have dissolved into rapturous enjoyment of the sound of Joyce's prose without actually delving into the meaning. But I'm not sure I�d find Ulysses much of a companion. It's a little too prickly. And I have a feeling that once I�d finally gotten through the whole thing with some attention that I might not want to look at it again for some time. For old friends, Jane Eyre is pretty impossible to beat, but as many times as I've read it, I'm not sure I'd want it to be my ONLY book. And so, like freshhell, I find myself leaning toward the Bible. There are familiar stories and things I don't know well. There is a lot of cultural history contained therein and many things to relate to other things that I've read. I'm not sure I'd be especially inspired by the religious aspects, but you never know what can happen on a desert island (I just inadvertently typed "dessert island," clearly wishful thinking). An alternative for similar reasons might be The Odyssey. Fagles translation, preferably. Of course, the third and most practical tack for this choice would be a book with a title like, �How to get the hell off a desert island.� That would show some foresight. However, if the book proved to be a sham, then I'd be screwed. Maybe �How to survive on a desert island� would be better.

One book that makes me laugh: Zadie Smith's On Beauty is making me laugh right now, but I�m not sure I'd pick that as my first choice, because there's a lot more going on there. Besides which, I'm using it as the answer to another question (see below). I'm having trouble thinking of much for this. I'm not sure that that means I don't read funny books or that the humor, as with Smith's book, is not the salient feature. The one slapstick funny book I can think of is Richard Armour's sadly out of print Twisted Tales of Shakespeare, not to mention some of his other parodies. I particularly enjoy the mock quizzes. One question in particular I still remember, although I haven't read this book in years. Are Romeo and Juliet best described as a)Star-crossed lovers, b) Moon-crossed starers, or c)Cross-eyed mooners. Okay, it's geeky, but then so am I.

One book I wish I'd written: I can't seem to decide between the aforementioned Housekeeping, Carson McCuller's A Member of the Wedding or Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. And also, in a different vein, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude. But I'm pretty sure I couldn't go wrong with any of them.

One book I wish had never been written: Mein Kampf is probably too easy an answer, but it's what comes to mind at the moment.

One book that made me cry: It's funny, because I know I've cried dozens of times reading books. I even think I�ve written about one or more of these experiences here at some point. But I can't remember any I've read recently, nor can I seem to find an entry where I mention it. Freshhell mentioned Charlotte's Web as one, which is probably true for me as well. I also remember another childhood book, A Bridge to Terabithia. As for adult books, well, I seem only able to think of books that bored me to tears. But that's not quite the same thing, is it?

Book I'm currently reading: There are many, but mostly I'm engaged with Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which is fantastic and hilarious and thoughtful and did I mention hilarious? And it's about academics.

One book I've been meaning to read: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's one of those books that has been sitting on my nightstand forever and has thus acquired the stigma of non-reading, quite without merit. It's just bigger than some of the other books, so it keeps ending up on the bottom of the pile. Someday I will read it. But there are at least four things ahead of it now.

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