Welcome to readers.booksXYZ.com. We are currently building a new way to discuss and experience books. This beta forum is our first step. As we release features, we ask you to try them out and report your experiences to us.http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/index.phpThu, 17 May 2012 00:13:43 -0500 Phorum 5.2.11 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,105,105#msg-105 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,105,105#msg-105
Effective study habits begin with setting time aside every day for studying. Try to set aside at least 2 hours a day, during a time when you can focus completely on studying. At the very least, this sets a practical routine, which will become necessary if you are seeking to receive an advanced degree. PhD students spend so much time studying that they usually give small study spaces at the university’s academic library.

Using the library brings us to our second point for effective learning methods, which is to use a quiet area free of distractions. All too often students cram in study time while watching television or eating, and this ruins their concentration. To have effective study habits, you must be able to concentrate on your schoolwork with minimal distractions.

Finally, students should engage in “active reading”. This means to take notes on what you are reading. Use a highlighter on the book, but don’t use the same color. Highlight new words with one color, and important points another color. This is particularly helpful for students who have difficultly learning by reading, as it lets the student actively engage with the text.

Effective study habits begin and end with the student. Like everything else in college, the more effort put into an assignment, the greater the rewards will be. By building up good studying behavior, the student is building up knowledge and memory techniques that will be useful long after the student has graduated.
Online GED]]> seltzerchuck NewsThu, 19 Apr 2012 02:14:31 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,103,103#msg-103 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,103,103#msg-103


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x360key usb x360key xk3y]]> Blossomoo Science FictionWed, 09 Nov 2011 03:21:25 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,102,102#msg-102 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,102,102#msg-102
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Coach, coach outlet store,coach purses]]> Weston Bania LiteratureSat, 23 Jul 2011 03:15:18 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,101,101#msg-101 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,101,101#msg-101 kristin LiteratureWed, 31 Mar 2010 17:03:45 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,100,100#msg-100 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,100,100#msg-100notes.booksxyz.com] Does it remind you of Alice in Wonderland too or do I just have Alice on the brain?]]> kristin Central DiscussionThu, 11 Mar 2010 16:44:10 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,98,98#msg-98 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,98,98#msg-98 kristin LiteratureThu, 21 Jan 2010 16:02:39 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,93,93#msg-93 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,93,93#msg-93Crooked Little Vein. Something about it's irreverence, innuendos, wry humor, and wit just made me fall in love with it. (In fact I just lent it to one of my best friends to read). It's slightly satirical - hidden within it's depths is a touch of social commentary without the preachy-ness that sometimes happens in novels of that sort. It's also entertaining, and made me laugh every other page at least (I was afraid of reading it in public because I would erupt in maniacal chuckles, and all out guffaws - knee slapping and all, repeatedly while reading it).
One thing I'd want to point out to anyone thinking to pick up the novel, keep in mind that Ellis Warren is a graphic novelist - and that genre tends to be much more... well, graphic, than the mainstream material non-graphic novel readers are used to (just pick up a graphic novel and check out the bloody gore... not exactly PG).
Critics of the book claim that he uses some of this graphic/explicit material purely for shock value - that there's really no purpose other than to shock his readers into submission. But I think there's something deeper going on - I'm just not quite sure what yet (I'll have to wait until I get the novel back so I can re-read it with fresh eyes).
If you haven't read it, and are interesting in something out of the mainstream, aren't worried about being offended and aren't concerned about irreverence, than pick it up, read a few pages, and then buy it.
If you've read it I'd love to hear you're thoughts on it!!
Thanks!]]> kristin LiteratureMon, 11 Jan 2010 11:55:27 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,84,84#msg-84 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,84,84#msg-84Just a thought. Let me know yours - :)]]> kristin LiteratureThu, 17 Dec 2009 16:50:39 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,82,82#msg-82 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,82,82#msg-82 kristin LiteratureWed, 09 Dec 2009 12:17:55 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,76,76#msg-76 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,76,76#msg-76
Link to Chapter One of A Study in Scarlet.]]> kristin LiteratureWed, 09 Dec 2009 12:20:08 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,72,72#msg-72 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,72,72#msg-72
I'll ask a question to get us started: What's your favorite Twilight scene? (Inthe books or the movie) Why? What did you not like?]]> kristin Young AdultMon, 18 Jan 2010 13:58:55 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,71,71#msg-71 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,71,71#msg-71
Link to The Yellow Wallpaper.]]> kristin LiteratureMon, 21 Dec 2009 18:28:08 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,66,66#msg-66 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,66,66#msg-66
E.A. Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is up on the front page of booksXYZ. It is a classic Poe short story, and one of my personal favorites. Critics have postulated that the Red Death is symbolic for several illnesses (plague, tuberculous, etc) and some have even compared it to vampirism - the reason it's called the Red Death and not something else. What does everyone else think? Any other thoughts on the story as a whole?

Link to the Short Story The Masque of the Red Death]]> kristin LiteratureMon, 21 Dec 2009 18:22:48 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,65,65#msg-65 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,65,65#msg-65picks.booksxyz.com]) as well as a short story for the week! If there's anything you'd like to see posted on the front page or if you'd like to submit a short story or article that you've written let us know!!
Thank you!!!]]> kristin NewsWed, 09 May 2012 03:03:52 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,64,64#msg-64 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,64,64#msg-64
It's a future time when all of your internet, music, email, texting, and everything goes straight into your head. Everyone has to go to school, which is owned by big corporations. In school, they teach you to use the Feed.

Your value to society is now your value to the corporations. They train you to use the feed, they market to you through the feed, they track your shopping interests with the, and then if you get sick, they decide if you will buy enough of their products to make it worth their while to pay for your medical treatment.

I thought it was kind of scary, because it already looks a little bit like today, where all of the free entertainment we get is designed to sell to us. There was some bad language, and some people have worried about it, but I thought it wasn't much worse than TV, and no worse than movies.]]> Hedwig Young AdultMon, 21 Dec 2009 17:55:58 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,62,62#msg-62 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,62,62#msg-62
One of my favorite parts is when the Reverend Mother tests Paul with the gom jabbar, to see if he is human. If Paul pulls out his hand from the box, he dies.

An animal cannot choose to ignore pain, and focus on long-term results. So that is a way to look at humans and animals, in that we understand time, and can imagine a future.]]> Hedwig Science FictionSun, 08 Nov 2009 19:40:58 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,59,59#msg-59 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,59,59#msg-59 SusieQ LiteratureFri, 06 Nov 2009 12:24:45 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,54,54#msg-54 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?10,54,54#msg-54
I'm struck at how the kids on the space station resemble kids today... lack of supervision, very brutal, very barbaric. It particularly looks like the activities of street kids, most of all those in rough neighborhoods.

Without adult guidance, the kids fall back into a state of nature, of brutal survival of the fittest. Maybe that's part of the attraction of these sorts of novels. We want to believe that we aren't really like that, but we've all seen enough of life that we suspect it may be who we really are.]]> Scormrider Science FictionMon, 18 Jan 2010 13:49:47 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,52,52#msg-52 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?14,52,52#msg-52By Beth Kanell
Candlewick Press, $16.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3719-4

Molly Ballou lives on the edge of a swift river, one that took her sister’s life when she was a child. When plans call for damming the river in this small town in Vermont, and changing employment patterns as well as the landscape, her teenage life alters drastically.

More startling, however, are the changes happening to the state in the 1920s. The governor has set in motion plans to rid Vermont of “poor citizens,” namely French Canadians and members of the Abenaki tribe. A bill has been proposed in the Legislature to sterilize anyone with Indian blood.

Molly’s parents have long claimed they are French Canadians to hide their Abenaki heritage, but now that lie won’t save them. As Molly grapples with the usual teenage issues, such as boys and school, not to mention the ghost of her sister haunting her, she must also face shocking prejudices that have disastrous consequences on her family and home.

“The Darkness Under the Water” provides a heartfelt story of a young woman coming to terms with a heritage not even spoken about at home and the threats made on her family because of her background. Statues mirroring those of Hitler were being considered in Vermont and author Beth Kanell provides a captivating story to make sure we don’t forget that it happened here.

The book also reminds us of the tragic prejudices held against French Canadians, which date as far back as the Acadian expulsion.
—Cheré Coen]]> coenfam Young AdultThu, 05 Nov 2009 07:11:23 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,46,46#msg-46 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,46,46#msg-46www.thepensivecitadel.com]
Just read this article and thought I should share. There's a nice little graph involved - although I would have liked to see what other books correlated with higher SAT scores (I can tell you that neither Lolita nor Freakanomics is my favorite book yet sits in the range my SAT scores are at... I wonder if he has one for GRE scores....)]]> kristin Central DiscussionMon, 16 Nov 2009 06:45:08 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?6,39,39#msg-39 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?6,39,39#msg-39 Fishhead2567 User FeedbackThu, 21 Jan 2010 16:27:38 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,36,36#msg-36 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,36,36#msg-36
A few years ago the community read A Lesson Before Dying. It is often viewed as a book about the oppression of blacks in the South, but one of the more interesting comments was that, although the whites could move more, and were more comfortable, they were also oppressed in a way, because they were locked into their roles in the community as rigidly as the blacks were. It reminds me of the pop psychology idea that hating others cuts both ways, it hurts them, but it hurts you too.

But beyond that, I'm reminded of the Greek tragedy, where the hero is locked into his fate; his tragic flaw is that, even if he/she knew the outcome, the hero could not choose differently. Everyone in A Lesson Before Dying is like that, they have no choices.

Except, surprisingly, the "hero", Jefferson. The one person in the book who is the completely innocent victim, is the only person who makes a choice in the book. The choice is a small, personal victory, but it is the most powerful one, because he chooses to no longer be a victim. Even as he is about to be taken to the electric chair, he chooses to live with dignity, and to take possession and control of his own life.

I was thinking that it's a very stoic choice, which I would guess was the original response to the tragedy & fatalism of the ancient Greeks? One cannot control one's fate, but one can control one's self.]]> Pistache LiteratureSun, 08 Nov 2009 20:25:10 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,31,31#msg-31 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,31,31#msg-31President
booksXYZ has asked me to participate in this forum. I live in the Boston area and we have a boook club called the Charles River Book Club that has been around in one form or another for 26 years. We get together about 8 times yearly and discuss a book eat and drink. I am going to ask my fellow members of the club and anyone else who wants to contribute to this forum by telling us about interesting books they have read. Also, suggest new books for our book club to read. The next book we will be reading is Sinclair Lewis's "It can't happen hear". This is a book written in 1935 on how the US could become a totalitarian society. Mr lewis was the first American to win the nobel prize in litterature. If anyone out there wants to read this book with us. We will be discussing this book at my apartment in Brookline on Novemeber 22 right after the Patriots defeat the Jets. Other recent books we have read is Mark Twain's : The Innocents Abroad" about his travels in Europe in the 1860s. A bit of a long haul. An excellent book we just read is a sort of Walden Pond like book called "Out Stealing horses" by the Norwegian author Per Paterson which I can recommend. all the best to everyone. Gary]]> garytrey Central DiscussionTue, 27 Oct 2009 21:04:34 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,27,27#msg-27 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,27,27#msg-27
Please sound off, tell us whether you would like that.]]> booksxyz Central DiscussionWed, 09 May 2012 04:40:04 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,25,25#msg-25 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,25,25#msg-25Thanks!!]]> kristin Central DiscussionTue, 03 Nov 2009 16:55:26 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,21,21#msg-21 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,21,21#msg-21
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and make those you have read bold.
2) Star (*) the ones you LOVE.
3) Italicize those you plan on reading

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling*
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell*
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman*
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Some but definitely not all)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald *
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood *
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (this book was so disturbing when I read it as a teenager)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov (I've read some other Vladimir Nabokov - interesting, but make sure to get a version that's translated well)
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold*
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac (But I've read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe)
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker (It waits upon my shelf)
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath*
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (My favorite Shakespeare by far is a Midsummers' Night Dream)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl Roald Dahl is one of my favorite children's authors - Matilda and The Witches were the two I read and re-read constantly.
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

only 22 out of 100 - but plans to read many more.]]> kristin Central DiscussionThu, 29 Oct 2009 17:42:22 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,20,20#msg-20 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?5,20,20#msg-20Also what is the best recent book (last 6 months or so) that you've read?
Have you read any of the books on the top 25 lists?]]> kristin Central DiscussionFri, 30 Oct 2009 15:46:13 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,16,16#msg-16 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,16,16#msg-16To Kill a Mockingbird is playing this weekend here in Lafayette, and a thought occurred to me.

The moral compass for the book is Atticus Finch. Atticus was the close friend, confident and correspondent of the famous Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator, politician, and legal defender; he was famous for taking cases before the courts that could not be won because of political considerations-- and winning them. In the book, Atticus Finch takes a similar case, but loses it.

The name 'Finch,' of course, refers to a songbird that, like the eponymous mockingbird has a lovely song. Like mockingbirds, finches are harmless animals that bring beauty and joy.

But it occurs to me that there may be an interpretation here that would be much more subversive, particularly in rural Alabama of the Great Depression. The key animal that gave Darwin his insights about evolution, and the animals that bear his name, are the Darwin finches of the Galapagos.

Harper Lee writes TKAM in the 1960's; she has not seen the Civil Rights movement yet, but she has seen great changes and great progress in the status of 'negroes'. Atticus-- clearly based on her father, an attorney and journalist-- clearly was far ahead of his time on moral and human issues, particularly those concerning the races. He was also a thinker whose beliefs were too modern for the other citizens of his little town.

I'm not sure much is known about Lee, she tends to be a recluse. Is it possible that in her moral tale, she was also aware of moral progress? That as she and her father defended human and racial progress, she was also invoking evolution as a motif of human advancement?]]> booksxyz LiteratureFri, 04 Dec 2009 20:57:30 -0600 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,13,13#msg-13 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?11,13,13#msg-13I thought it was interesting that "Jonah's Gourd Vine" was written from the male perspective.
I haven't read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" but has anyone read it that can make a comparison? Is it written from a female perspective or male. How do these two novels deal with gender as a theme? Does it make a difference that Hurston was a black woman writer writing in a field dominated by white male writers? Is she responding to any other writers?]]> kristin LiteratureTue, 27 Oct 2009 20:48:14 -0500 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,12,12#msg-12 http://readers.booksxyz.com/forums/read.php?7,12,12#msg-12The Top 25 Books from University Presses are here.
Books I Should've Read: The Top 25 Books from Last Year are here.
And The Top 25 Books for this week are posted here.

Has anyone read any of these books? Suggestions? Recommendations? What is your favorite, recent book that everyone "Should've Read"?]]> kristin NewsWed, 28 Dec 2011 05:21:02 -0600