I am someone who has always been fascinated by the mystique of the Kennedy family. In high school I worked at the local public library, and at 8:45 p.m. in a quiet suburban town, there was never much for me to do. I often found myself drawn to the biography section (call number 921) where the stories about this family-the good and the bad-kept me captivated time and time again.

Personally, I don’t think that I could ever ’fess up to eating cottage cheese mixed with sardine juice. To me, that sounds just wretched. Add to it that the architect of this dish eats it while standing over the sink (on one leg, no less), and it sounds absolutely criminal.

“Last year, I gave into an addiction and I found everything,” wrote Nina Sankovitch on her website. It was Oct. 28, 2009 and Ms. Sankovitch had achieved her goal of reading one book a day for a year. Ms. Sankovitch pursued her “addiction” with few stipulations as to what types of books she would read.

Often in academia we are drawn towards books that teach us a new philosophy, books that offer us insight into a problem the world desperately needs to solve, and books that explore the complexities of human relationships. We study books with layers of themes, a build-up of motifs and carefully constructed language.

Jeannette Walls, author of the bestselling novel The Glass Castle, came to Mount Holyoke’s campus on Monday, Oct. 26 to discuss her newest book Half-Broke Horses, in Gamble Auditorium. Half-Broke Horses is the story of Walls’ grandmother Lily Casey Smith, told in the first person.

Best-selling authors Richard Russo and David Wroblewski discussed their latest works with author and Mount Holyoke professor Valerie Martin, on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at Mount Holyoke. The speakers were joined by Russo’s daughter, who works at the Odyssey Book Shop, and introduced them.

Gregory Maguire has a gift. He has a talent for taking stories as we know them, and twisting them into deep, multi-layered and intellectual novels, sprinkled with his own innovations. He has quite the laundry list of recycled fairy tales, and that list is only getting longer: Cinderella told from a step-sister’s viewpoint-check.

I would have loved to be in the room when Kevin Roose pitched the idea to his mother. “That’s right, Mom. I want to leave Brown for a semester to study at Liberty University! Yeah, the Jerry Falwell school!” What? What? She must have been ripping out her hair.

Consumerist America has forever been naming and renaming the genre of books for women. “Chick Lit” is described as any pile of papers bound together in a book-like fashion, by women, for women. But the genre is changing. No longer are readers absorbing Danielle Steele, Judith McNaught and Nora Roberts like they used to; the contemporary American woman wants something a little less vapid and a lot more heartbreaking.

Josh Goldfaden’s debut volume of short stories, Human Resources, published two years ago, marks the arrival of a stunning new literary talent. The collection of eight short stories is wacky and wonderful. It is definitely worth a read, as long as you have no problem with the absurd.