susan is currently reading Wikipedia Tour: The Grand Tour and Shoes, Bags, and Tiaras.
I’m female, from the United States. I’ve been a DailyLit member since January 27, 2007. My reading interests include Classics, and "Women's Fiction".
Books
- Organizing the Disorganized Child 79% complete
- Paranoia 60% complete
- Wikipedia Tour: The Grand Tour 21% complete
- Many Thoughts of Many Minds (Quotations) 6% complete
- DailyLit Selects 100% complete
- 30 Stories in 30 Days 100% complete
- The 50th Law 56% complete
- Shoes, Bags, and Tiaras 94% complete
- Strange Things Happen 22% complete
- Madame de Staël 12% complete
- On the Origin of Species: Part 1 finished
- Walden finished
- Get Cooking finished
- Unleashing the Ideavirus finished
- Momlogic Recession Survival Guide finished
- The Art of War finished
- Masters of Verse finished
- Jabberwocky finished
- Wikipedia Tour: 25 Great TV Shows finished
- Wikipedia Tour: Famous Poets finished
- Hell-Heaven finished
- Who is Mark Twain? finished
- Struwwelpeter-Merry Tales and Funny Pictures finished
- Emeril at the Grill finished
- Burn This Book finished
- The Bootstrapper's Bible finished
- Wikipedia Tour: Masterpieces of Western Art finished
- Sonnets from the Portuguese finished
- This Moment on Earth finished
- 3 Short Reads by Edgar Allan Poe finished
- The Woman in White finished
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button finished
- Book Sampler: Best of Brit Lit finished
- Best of Technology Writing 2007 finished
- Best of Technology Writing 2006 finished
- 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money finished
- Wikipedia Tour: Wine 101 finished
- Great Expectations finished
- Wikipedia Tour: The Presidents of the United States finished
- Wikipedia Tour: Greek Mythology finished
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm finished
- How to Live on 24 Hours a Day finished
- The Three-Martini Playdate finished
- The Lost Princess of Oz finished
- Letters to a Young Activist finished
- Pride and Prejudice finished
- Smotherhood finished
- Holiday Romance finished
- A Room with a View finished
- Little Women finished
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom finished
- War of the Worlds suspended
Posts
Reader Challenges - Who's Coming to Dinner?
As bestselling author Daniel Pink wrote, exercising your creativity leads to personal and professional success.
With that in mind, and holiday dinners fast approaching, this month's reader challenge asks you to imagine a fictional holiday gathering and describe—in no more than 50 words—a character, conversation or event at your holiday meal.
To sweeten the pot, we'll select three winners, each of whom will receive a copy of Mollie Katzen's new book, Get Cooking. Make sure to post your story by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, November 29 to be included in the judging.
Feedback - Feedback Forum
@dreamdust, @rexbarrett, @Christycat, @Murasaki, @ahilborne, @widiantozhu, @ tina16, @wellreadscholar (and others): thanks for your kind words. It's great to hear that you appreciate the site and the new (and old) reads we've launched.
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #47: Words to Live By
Here's the one that @gretchenrubin mentioned to me that she heard: "if you're not sure whether to have kids, do; if you're not sure whether to go to law school, don't."
Reader Challenges - Tea with the Queen
As a tribute to the launch of Shoes, Bags, and Tiaras from the Victoria & Albert Museum collection, this month's Reader Challenge will challenge you to invite an unlikely character for tea with the queen. Describe this encounter in one sentence and post your royal responses here.
30 Stories in 30 Days - Worthless and Weird or Wonderfuly Weird?
@Golem100: These stories were previously written by David Wellington (and not specifically for this particular event).
Feedback - Unabridged?
Yes, that's correct. All titles are in their original, unabridged version; if we were to offer an abridged version, we'd certainly let you know.
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #37: Where to?
Travelling back to the time of "A Room with a View" set in Florence and the outskirts would be my bet as well, @arolfe1. In fact, we just came back from Florence and hanging out in the Piazza della Signoria I was transported back to the scene of the murder where the young man saves the woman. Since little has changed on the piazza, it was easy to imagine the characters in play.
Reader Challenges - Summer Vacation in Six Words
Thanks, everyone. Some lovely pictures you've drawn. Wanted to clarify question since it's not necessarily the vacation itself (that is, going away part) we're after (unless that is how you spent your summer). Question should read: what have you been doing this summer? The vacation part was really an ode to the essay your teacher would ask at the beginning of school.
Reader Challenges - Summer Vacation in Six Words
With summer starting to wind down (ugh, can't believe I said that!), this month's reader challenge highlights a favorite back-to-school favorite assignment. Tell us what you've been up to this summer in—you guessed it—six words.
And thanks to the folks at Smith Magazine for being the inspiration behind 6 word challenges.
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #35: Literary Friends
Oh, I like the idea of Elizabeth Bennet as a best friend. For the worst friend, I would have to say Mrs. Danvers from REBECCA. Now there's a real piece of work!
Reader Challenges - Summer Love in One Sentence
Really appreciate your feedback, cresswga. Thanks again!
Reader Challenges - Summer Love in One Sentence
Inspiration for this month's reader challenge came from Jhumpa Lahiri, who's known for her turns of phrase that are short yet revealing. You'll see what I mean when you read Hell-Heaven, this month's Big Read, which tells the story of an unexpected love. In a single sentence—that's right, a single sentence—tell your own story of summer love. Then share your single-sentence love story here.
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #30: Books Go To Camp
How about the "Beautiful and the Damned" -- the title says it all!
Ideas - Dynamic Reading
If you add books to your "To Read" list (there is an "Add to To Read" feature on each book page) , the next book on your To Read list will automatically begin once you've completed your last book. Does that help?
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #8: Which books make good movies?
I completely agree that the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice (with Colin Firth) is amazing. I can watch that one over and over again (and to the dismay of my husband -- I have!)
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #28: For Adults Only
Mine was Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca (does that count as a classic?) I skipped the first chapter (at my mother's recommendation), and then I was off and running. Still one of my favorite books.
Poetry Books - Book Requests
Note that we have Baudelaire (in French) available. If you're thinking of an English translation, we'd need to find one where rights have been made available (e.g. through Creative Commons) or we'd need to acquire the rights.
Help - Why Validation Required on Every Book?
We've been discussing this internally and will work to change this so that if you're logged in when you subscribe, you don't need to revalidate.
Book Requests - Isak Dinesen and Graham Greene
OK, good to know. We can inquire about acquiring rights to these.
Etc. - Title has a color / colors in it!
Double posts are the way to go! Just thought of White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
Etc. - Title = a person's name.
@cresswga: Probably not but worth a try. :)
Etc. - Title has a color / colors in it!
The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #26: Once upon a time...
The wildest fairy tales I know (deeply disturbing so beware!) come from Struwwelpeter (aka Strubelpeter) which are about what happens to a boy who doesn't listen to his parents (I can't remember the name of the English translation.) My son loved them. One that involves a child playing with matches who subsequently burned to the ground made made my daughter burst into tears. My 90-something year old uncle still remembers reading them as a child.
Etc. - Birds in the title.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach)
Etc. - Title = a person's name.
How about:
-Ulysses (James Joyce)
-Emma (Jane Austen)
Does Moby Dick count?
Etc. - "Buttonhole books" Everyone has at least one
I love the idea of "Buttonhole Books." Mine are probably:
-Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
-Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
Also loved The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster) as a child
Etc. - Question of the Week #17: Why do you DailyLit?
It's great to hear how DailyLit has been working for all of you. @cresswga, I'm not sure which early press you may have seen -- DailyLit was featured in DailyCandy quite early on; could that have been it?
Etc. - 50 Word Challenge
I just finished reading Daniel Pink's A WHOLE NEW MIND (great book by the way), which explained that storytelling is essential for professional success and personal fulfillment. He offered this challenge: write a 50-word mini-saga, which is an extremely short story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's exactly 50 words (no more, no less). Take the challenge and get your creative juices flowing!
When you're done, post your mini-saga here.
We're up for it. How about you?
Etc. - Question of the Week #17: Why do you DailyLit?
I started DailyLit because I wanted a way to enrich my life in just a few minutes day in between running from work and helping my kids with their homework. I was wondering what drew you to DailyLit and how it’s affected your life.
Etc. - Question of the Week: Special CEO Edition
Which short story would you like to see as the next DailyLit Big Read? Thousands of folks have been reading this winter's selection: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (still time to join in). Know of any great, classic short stories we should feature?
Ideas - Breaking up poetry books
Good idea. We'll take a look back at our poetry and arrange to send individual poems rather than a series of poems in each installment. Thanks for the feedback.
Book Requests - Bulfinch's Mythology
Not to worry, this is currently being worked on. It should be up on the site in the next few weeks.
-Susan
Book Requests - French Philosophy "Les Lumiéres"
We are actually planning on launching French-language titles in the next couple of months. We'll add your requests to the list.
Book Requests - Doom
Note that "Doom" is still under copyright so is not readily available to us. We are now working with a number of publishers and well-known authors to include their copyrighted books on DailyLit and will add your request for "Doom" to the list. Let us know if there are older Sci-Fi books that you'd be interested in reading via DailyLit.
Book Requests - Henry James
DL Update: We've just added The Bostonians. Happy reading!
Book Requests - Oz books
We're not quite there yet, but we've now added Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz; The Emerald City of Oz; The Lost Princess of Oz; and Glinda of Oz. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Book Requests - More Jules Verne!
Be disappointed no more. We just added three additional Jules Verne books: Around the World in 80 Days; Journey to the Centre of the Earth; and From the Earth to the Moon. Enjoy!
Ideas - Larger emails?
We will eventually add "Advanced Options" for readers to further customize their subscriptions (including the ability to receive multiple installments per e-mail). Stay tuned...
Book Requests - Sir THomas Malary's "Le Morte d'Arthur"
Thanks for the suggestion. I've added it to our list of books to be put into production.
Book Requests - Rebecca and North and South
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll include North and South on our list as it is currently available. Rebecca is one of my favorite books, but it's not yet in the public domain (it's still under copyright). We are now working with publishers, authors and other rights holders to include copyrighted works; I'll find out if this title could be made available via DailyLit.
Book Requests - How about some Horatio Alger?
Good to know that Horatio Alger's books are of interest. Which of his books in particular would you like to read via DailyLit?
Ideas - Book queue
Thanks for the great idea. We've included it in our list of features to be added.
Ideas - non free works
Yes, we are currently working with various publishers and well-known authors to include their copyrighted content for a fee. We expect to launch these titles within the next few months. Stay tuned...