Very useful Glossary and Literature website

The beauty of Bob's Byway is that it ILLUSTRATES poetic terms using examples from famous poems. To do so for a print version will make the glossary very daunting. On behalf of all Lit students who have no wish to lug a 10-kg book around, I thank Bob.

I've also put up the link to Bob's Byway on the side. The design of the website is not trendy and avant-garde. But for the student who's savvy, there's lots of gold in the site.

Ms Chia's charity booksale

Hi everyone!

I'm selling off some of my lit books as well as the more frivolous books/magazines for charity. I've done some research on the reputation/governance of the two charities i have in mind and they are:

1. Dover Park Hospice
2. The Singapore Children's Society

I've put up the list of books I'm selling on Google Docs under the Vjclitrocks account. 100% of all proceeds will go to the charities and you get to choose which one of the two to give it to! Once all the sales close, I will donate the collected sums and announce to you the sum donated, with documentation.

To Access Google Docs, you will need to:

1. Go to gmail.com
2. Type in vjclitrocks in the username
3. Type in the password: you should remember this or get it from your lit rep or me
4. You will see the inbox of the Vjclitrocks account: that's not it. Just look to the TOP LEFT HAND CORNER of the INBOX and you will see 'DOCUMENTS' in tiny font. Click on it and Voila, you are at the list.

The charity sale is run on an auction style. So even if you are later, if you are prepared to GIVE a HIGHER price, you just type your price over the previous price, and your contact details over the lower bid. Please observe the honour system of not poaching another person's details or typing over their auction bid unfairly. It's only fair if your bid is higher than theirs!

All bids will be closed on 20 December 2007, 12 noon, Singapore time. This list of books is NOT COMPLETE. I will be adding extra lists of items for charity up to 1 December 2007. Pls buy loads of books and give loads :)

very interesting ww1 site

letters from a soldier in wwI, posted exactly 90 years after they were written. very cool. i've put the site under useful sites too

cliffs notes in haiku

from one hundred great books in haiku by david bader:

note: if you know me, you will know my extreme disdain for cliffs notes. go there at your peril.
what's below is for laughs.

d.h. lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover:

On the grounds, fresh game.
On the new gamekeeper, fresh
Lady Chatterley.

herman melville, Moby Dick:

Vengeance! Black blood! Aye!
Doubloons to him that harpoons
the Greenpeace dinghy.

jane austen, Pride and Prejudice:
(this is my one of my favourites)

Single white lass seeks
landed gent for marriage, whist.
No parsons, thank you.

charles dickens, Bleak House:

Fog, gloom, men in wigs --
the Chancery Court blights all.
See where law school leads?

william golding, Lord of the Flies:

'Kill him! Spill his blood!'
Marooned lads hold savage rites.
Choirboys learn how to prey.

samuel beckett, Waiting for Godot:

Act I. 'It's hopeless.
My boots don't fit. Where's God?'
Act II. The same thing.

william shakespeare, Hamlet:

'His mother wed his
dead murdered father's brother!'
Next Jerry Springer.

nathaniel hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter:

Grim, grey New England --
all adulterers receive
free monogramming.

vladimir nabokov, Lolita:
(this is very clever)

Lecherous linguist --
he lays low and is laid low
after laying Lo.

michel foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison:

Carceral discourse
polyvalently deployed.
Hot air gently blows.

george orwell, 1984:

Love is a thoughtcrime.
The Thought Police make Winston
forget whatsername.

charlotte bronte, Jane Eyre:

O woe! His mad wife --
in the attic! Had they but
lived together first.

christopher marlowe, Doctor Faustus:

A scholar trades a
few fun years for endless Hell.
Maths was not his field.

St. Augustine, The Confessions

This is just to say
I screwed around. Forgive me.
I enjoyed it so.

oscar wilde, The importance of being Ernest:
(very good)

Earnestly posing
as Ernest, Jack learns he's named
Ernest in earnest.

j.d. salinger, The Catcher in the Rye:

I flunked out again.
Crumby prep schools. Bunch of dopes.
Boy, I'm not kidding.

f. scott fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby:
(not good but for here for comparison with the novel)

Beauty to weep for --
coral, azure, apple green.
His custom-made shirts.

nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra:

Kindness is weakness!
Abhor pity, worship strength!
Be an uber-jerk!

michel de montaigne, Essays

Genteel French musings --
life, death, odd smells, my moustache.
Today's topic: Thumbs.

george eliot, Middlemarch

Stifling social roles,
small-town gossip -- beware the
eyes of Middlemarch.

ernest hemingway, The Sun Also Rises:

'Why can't we?' she said.
'War wound,' I said. 'Oy,' Cohn said.
Back to Harry's Bar.