My high school literature teacher, Mr Prahl, was the kind of man who would say "You don't ask a person if they've read Crime & Punishment, you ask him if he's read Crime & Punishment recently." The same teacher gave the graduating seniors who took his class an honorary membership in the 'Dead Poets Society.' It sounds cheesy, but he made you feel honored.
How he would be ashamed of me now.
I have not read Crime & Punishment recently. These days I get my reading inspiration from NPR programs that I thoroughly enjoy and yet somehow never make time to hear. Specifically, if you are not an author featured on This American Life, I probably have never heard of you.
And even with my singular source for belle lettres entertainment, I'm still 5 years behind the rest of the Public Radio listening world. So what I'm getting to is the book I'm enjoying now: Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation.
Reading this book is a lot of fun. I'm a bit of a nut when it comes to history, especially anecdotal history. I love being able to tell people that Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, witnessed not only his father's assassination, but also the assassinations of the next two US President's to be killed in office. The whole experience has inspired me to unearth some great stories about the statue-people of Minneapolis.
Only it turns out we just don't have that many statues here. At least not of famous r even semi-famous people for that matter. My next tract is to find hidden-gem-of-a-stories involving the intertwined lives of people for whom streets are named after in Minneapolis. Hopefully I'll find out that Father Hennepin christened Joseph Nicollet's baby or something like that.
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