I don't like candy corn,
No I don't like candy corn.
I really like Halloween,
But I don't like candy corn.

I read dead people. I "fell in love" with Charles Dickens when I was just six years old, after my parents took me to see the film "Oliver!" I'm happily married with a young son, and teach British literature at a...more »

I don't like candy corn,
No I don't like candy corn.
I really like Halloween,
But I don't like candy corn.

I read dead people. I "fell in love" with Charles Dickens when I was just six years old, after my parents took me to see the film "Oliver!" I'm happily married with a young son, and teach British literature at a large university. My field of specialization is Victorian literature, with an emphasis on Dickens. My other favorite writers include Thomas Hardy, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, William Wordsworth, Walt Whitman, John Irving, Oscar Wilde, George Eliot, Robert Browning, and pretty much anyone who's both British and dead.

Currently reading:
The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Recently finished:
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Jack Maggs by Peter Carey
Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres by Ruth Brandon
A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
The Habit by Elizabeth Kuhns
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

Groups I moderate:
Barbara Pym
Dickens of a Group

Things I like:
My husband and our son; my family; my friends; my first cup of coffee in the morning; chocolate, Mexican food, hamburgers, any type of berry (especially blueberries), shrimp, crab, and crawfish; teaching; old movies (especially the Thin Man series, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Kelly, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day, and any Alfred Hitchcock); HGTV; England; being a native Texan; cooking (I read recipe books like they were novels), baking, cake decorating, scrapbooking (my other obsession), and needlework; antiques (especially blue and white things and old lace); English gardens; naps; classical music (especially Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini); travel; a roaring fire, a cup of tea, and a good book; Halloween; Christmas; learning; crossword puzzles; "American Idol" (embarrassing but true), "I Love Lucy," and "Sex and the City"; good manners; autumn; laughing

Things I don't like:
Fundamentalism; conservative politicians; pretention; reality TV; beets, lima beans, cantaloupe, grapefruit, hard-boiled eggs, and salmon; dogs; gory movies or TV programs; Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, John Madden, and Martha Stewart; telemarketers; narrow-minded people; willful ignorance; rudeness; traffic; shopping; whining; noise; perpetual victims; rap and country music; football; brutally hot days; self-righteous celebrities; talk radio; chewing gum « less