Heart of Darkness is worth a read. It’s astonishing to discover that English was not Conrad’s first language, given that he writes so well in it. (At least, I’m pretty sure he wrote in English and it wasn’t translated.)

Guess what I’m reading right now? You got it: Great Expectations. I’ll let you know how it goes. OK, I’m off to take care of the invalid wife and child. It’s one of those situations where I take care of them and wonder how long it will be until I get sick. Oh, I already emailed you but the folks reading these comments could stand to know: Happy Anniversary to the Johnsons!

I’ve not read Heart of Darkness, but I have it at home.

Theodore Drieser has slowly fallen out of favor. Its possible you eluded him in school, and if so, you should give thanks to Cthulu.

But while I’m not necessarily suprised you’ve never had to read it, I am somewhat surprised you’ve never heard of ‘An American Tragedy’.

They never made you read Heart of Darkness either?

No Shakespeare?

I’d ask for my money back.

P.G.: I’ve heard good things about Life, and I’m surprisd because it wasn’t on my radar at all. In fact, I’d never heard of it until someone at work was extolling its virtues.

Slowhand: Am I a philistine if this is the first I’m hearing of Theodore Drieser?

Rob: Here’s a list of everything I can remember reading for school from about the 6th grade on:

1. The Red Badge of Courage
2. Where the Red Fern Grows
3. Great Expectations
4. The Jungle
5. Lord of the Flies
6. Les Miserables
7. 1984
8. The Grapes of Wrath
9. A Separate Peace
10. The Catcher in the Rye

I think we read part of Tom Sawyer, but not all of it. I was also miffed that we stopped reading Les Miserable about two-thirds of the way through it; that was one of the few books we had to read that I was enjoying.

I like Chuck and Reaper. Right now the only thing worth watching in Bionic Woman is Katie Sackhoff, but it will remain a guilty pleasure until it is canceled.

I’ve enjoyed Journeyman and Heroes. Pushing Daisies may be the best new show, but the fairytale quality that makes it so special may doom it to a single season.

Or I could do both. Although I think I’d had enough Dickens to last my lifetime by my 2d year of college.

“Oh, and as for Charles Dickens, I’ll paraphrase Peter Griffin: I have read his work and I am not a fan. I was force-fed Great Expectations in high school, and if there’s one sure-fire way to turn people off classic literature, it’s to cram it down their throats in the 9th grade.”

It could have been worse. You might have been forcefed Theodore Drieser. The tragedy in ‘An American Tragedy’ is how it can destroy a love of literature for life.

Hard to believe they didn’t force-feed Huckleberry Finn to you. What were they teaching up there in Michigan? I thought you couldn’t graduate high school without reading Huckleberry Finn. Well, all kidding aside, it’s a pretty good read.

Looking to be a banner night here . . . boy is running a mild temperature because we’ve got two teeth ready to make their appearance in the world and wife just came in, went to the bedroom and went to sleep after informing me that she had to pull over on her drive home to puke. I think I’ll sleep on the couch tonight just to be safe. Aieee.

Not exactly information you needed to know but there you have it. Let me know when we’ve set the record for most pointless, lengthy set of comments for kjtoo. There’s no shortage of random subjects I could discuss and I’m sure that’s what your loyal readers would enjoy most: random irritating comments from somebody they don’t know from Adam (see: we could discuss/research the etymology of the phrase “don’t know from Adam” and see what that’s all about).

And see what happened just now? You may need to do a refresh (Ctrl-F5 is my preferred method), but hopefully you’ve noticed that the font size in the posts and the comments has been bumped from 12 to 15 pixels, and the line height bumped from 18 to 21 pixels. I also bumped the comment author name up a bit to help make it stand out more.

That’s as near to instant results as you’re likely to see.

Additional comments are welcome, as the redesign is ongoing.

As for Huckleberry Finn, alas, it is one of those books that was not force-fed to me in high school, and I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read it.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, yes. Huckleberry Finn, no.

Bleak House. Trust me. Worth it. You’ll see.

Actually, you won’t see. But you SHOULD see. Then, you’d know how right I am. You might think it would be a lot of work being this right. It’s just my little cross to bear.

As long as I wasn’t asked: I think you should have chosen a bigger font for your redesign. You don’t want to get me started on the topics of redesigns. It’s what sites (AG does it all the time) do when they’ve got nothing better to do. There, you did it, you got me started. Who knows where it will end?

That said, I’m not re-reading Great Expectations anytime soon, except at gunpoint. I may give Dickens another shot, but my reading list is far too long to say it’ll be in the foreseeable future.