East of Eden

By John Steinbeck. Has anyone read it? We're doing it in my English honors class, and I think it's a great book! I would really recommend(sp?) it. It has one of the greatest villians of literary history in it!
It isn't a fast-paced book, but it really makes you think about things in life. Here's a passage from the book:
"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil."
Interesting. I think.

Huh. The author sounds really familiar, but I haven't read it, let alone have I heard of it.

English class is amazing. It's opened my eyes up to so much great literature.

We're doing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Upon my request. Haha. Our IB stuff is all finished, which means our entire curriculum for English 30 (grade twelve) and English IB is done. So we have a month and a half to do nothing after exams. She's giving about half of it to us as spares, which is really nice. But she decided she wanted to do another Shakespeare piece, so we did The Taming of the Shrew really quickly. We watched the movie and we were supposed to (I sure did) read it. And we had some discussions and stuff. And kind of a quiz thing, but it was really simple. It was more or less just to stretch some thoughts and ideas out of us. So I asked if we could do A Midsummer Night's Dream, cause I've always wanted to. So she's letting us read it as our final piece, yay!!

John Steinbeck wrote things like The Pearl, and Of Mice and Men
Midsummer's Night Dream! I love that play!! I read it a few years ago..I think I was the only one in my class who payed attention. I've always wanted to act in a production of that...

How is Taming of the Shrew? I haven't read that one yet.

I think I liked The Taming of the Shrew. It's cute... in a feisty sort of way. It's pretty much about two couples, and two types of love.

One girl is courted properly by a jillion guys, but she's the younger sister. But the older sister has to marry first, before the younger one gets married.

The older sister is the shrew, which is a nagging women, literally. She's violent, and crude, and... terrible.

The younger sister is 'in love', and then the men courting her, find some guy who wants to be rich, to try and marry the older sister, so they can have a chance with the younger one. So he gets a giant dowry from the father, and forces her into the relationship.

In the end, it's the older sister that ends up in the better relationship; the one who didn't want one, and the younger sister ends up being disobedient and... not in a good relationship.

That sounds drab, but it's really good.

And I'm totally way more excited than anyone in my class for A Midsummer Night's Dream. =)

Oooh, that sounds interesting! Maybe I'll check it out.
Midsummer's Night Dream is hilarious, and really good.