T. - it says "for Ipad" - I don't know if you can use it for other tablets. Maybe shoot them an email? S. - I adore Stephen Fry. Why isn't he reading more of them? Grrr!

Johnny, you obviously were never a little girl, because if you were would know it was all in magic. Jeesh.

Grace, did your girls watch "Cinderella" when they were little?

Yay, Ms. Trethewey!

None of the above. :)

What a handsome young man! And thank you for your service, Pvt. Horowitz.

LO loves Jim C, too. ;)

I loved this piece in the NY Times, too, and I want the book.

Wilfred Owen, officer in the British Army during WWII and poet. Killed in on Nov 4, 1918, one week before the Armistice. Connection to "The Great War and Modern Memory" by the late Mr. Fussell, see any of Owen's poems, almost all of which employ irony, especially "Dulce et Decorum Est," which challenges, by describing in vivid and gruesome detail the death of a man by poison gas, "the old lie" that dying for one's country in war is "sweet and proper."

Nin, I'll pay you a bazillion bucks if you whisper the professor's name in my ear.

"On My First Son" is one of the most poignant and beautiful poems ever written. I've used it in Intro. to Lit. classes as an example of the timelessness of art: here we sit, in the midst of all our 21st century technological glory, thinking we know it all, and yet this early 17th century poem expresses the same bewildered grief any parent of a dead child feels, even today. And you'd have to have a heart of stone not to ache at and "Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, Here doth lie/Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry." It's brilliant and heartbreaking.

When I was in high school and on the school newspaper, I used to scribble Stephen Crane poems all over my desk blotter. (I was an editor and so had a desk and a blotter.) At that age, I didn't really get him, but his stuff sounded profound and I liked it anyway. I probably still don't really "get" it (sometimes I think "getting" poems is overrated, especially when I don't), but I still like it and I'm glad to know that other kids are still reading his poetry!

Jim, you are always completely grammatical and irresistibly lovable. Algy would be proud.

Well, she would know. She was living a romance, complete with evil father and handsome prince on horseback (or in this case, with train tickets). Nice to see EBB, too. She gets scoffed at too much.

Plus, S&W prove that grammar doesn't have to be dry and boring. There's a reason it's survived for so long. (One day, I'll tell you about my grandmother's cousin's style manual! Talk about pompous!)

I love Strunk and White. So out of fashion now - but so wonderful.