Our vacations frequently were an eight-hour drive away. My parents loved it when we'd read in the car. Before we got in the car, they'd always check to make sure we had enough books.

Freshman year in high school is when my books started to have the high body count I'm known for today. I remember "Forever" and "Go ask Alice" well, though.

When I was a kid I could read in the car for hours, but at some point during puberty my inner ears went wonky and supersensitive and now I get motion sick even reading on the subway. Unfair, I tell you!

One of my favorite memories is of reading the Harry Potter books out loud to my kids as we drove to and from softball tournaments. I read the first 5 out to them before CJ was old enough to read 6 and 7 on his own.

I don't get the impression Cornell West is saying his standards are a good thing.

The only version of Wuthering Heights I'm familiar with is Monty Python's semaphore version.

Did they break up that way?

In sixth grade Michael Baker took Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? off the "girls" shelf. And got busted reading it to his friends out loud. He had just gotten to a part about her panties (pronounced breathlessly, accompanied by gasps from all assembled) when the teacher rippped it out of his hands and gave him detention.

The only book my mom ever banned me from reading was Forever. Of course, one of my junior high friends had a copy and it went through our entire group within a few weeks.

I'm impressed you read the whole thing. My junior high had a copy passed around with the good parts dog-eared and underlined. I didn't read the entire thing until a few years later and thought she was idiotic for thinking a mole was cute.

I may have been too young when I read Clan of the Cave Bear. I was deffinately too impressionable. I reread it recently and and realized to my horror that about 90% of my kinks come directly from that book.

but at some point during puberty my inner ears went wonky and supersensitive and now I get motion sick even reading on the subway. Unfair, I tell you!

Jessica is me! I still mourn the fact that I cannot read in the car.

The only version of Wuthering Heights I'm familiar with is Monty Python's semaphore version.

I read that book *three times* when I was a kid, every other year or so, just to make sure I still hated it. Which I did.

Did you also occasionally stick a fork in an outlet, just to make sure it still electrocuted you?

flea, I liked that article. I feel for that poor girl's (I'll use female since she identifies female) consternation. Gender confusion must be bad enough without playing it out on a professional public stage.

I have to say, when I first read about Caster Semenya, I was cheesed off because the way the story was presented was that she was tested *only* because she improved too much. Like, how could a *woman* do so well -- surely she's a man, baby! No *woman* could ever actually run as well as a man!

And so my feminist ire was stoked. Not to mention my gender-identity warrior spirit.

But then, reading the article that flea linked, it sounds like a whole lot of other shifty shit was going on, and that's reprehensible.

I think the IAAF and the South African sporting federation don't come off in the best lights.

Heh. You think?

And all the scientific analysis in the world doesn't answer the question of how to divide sporting events.

Or the rest of society.

A Princess of Mars with a Frank Frazetta cover--naked, oiled Martian body and half-naked John Carter.

Heh. Burrell, I read the Happy Hooker when I was 10.

Harold Robbins, read when I was about that same age--definitely an eye-opener!

I had him in mind. Also Rich Man, Poor Man -- not as racy, but I owned a paperback copy.

One of my Mother's insane hippie cruelties was that she believed it was bad for our eyes to read in the car. (The others were putting brewers yeast in our orange juice, and cheering for the other team at softball games because, "She was at our house YESTERDAY, she's your friend!")