The following entry was written by Audra Pace. Audra is our new Associate Editor here at READ and Writing magazines. Hopefully soon we will have a silly caricature and bio for her. For now, just her words will have to do...

Happy birthday, Mary Shelley!

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, turns 210 today.  Even though she's not around to celebrate, we can at least celebrate her groundbreaking body of work.

Most everyone knows the story of Dr. Frankenstein, the mad scientist who attempts to create life but instead realizes he has royally messed with nature. The novel has often been viewed as a comment on the scientists of the Industrial Revolution, who perhaps bit off more than they could chew technologically.

Mary was a writer during the Romantic era, and eventually married a Romantic poet, Percy Shelley. (How Romantic!) She grew up with Romanticism--her academic father was close friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. It is rumored that she once hid under a couch in her parlor to hear Coleridge read his famous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Can you blame her? Who hasn't stayed up past their bedtime to get their fill of Romantic poetry?

Frankenstein was originally published anonymously to protect the story (and Mary) from the nasty criticism that her gender would inevitably earn her. Mary was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th century proto-feminist who authored "The Vindication of the Rights of Woman." So, I guess we can see where Ms. Shelley got her gumption. It has taken all the way until half way through the 20th century for Mary to be credited as influential a member of the Romantic era as her colleagues (Wordsworth, Byron, her own husband, et al). So thanks for hanging in there Mary; we at READ know who wears the literary pants in your clan. And, once again, Happy Birthday!

I never thought I'd see the day, but MTV is going intellectual on us! Apparently, MtvU (the MTV station for colleges) has picked its first poet laureate.

John Ashbery, 80, will now have his work used as promotional material for the MTV station. This is a really cool honor, but it's certainly not the first for Ashbery. He's won almost every award associated with poetry. He's even won a Pulitzer!

His poems are often filled with humor, which seems perfect for the MTV crowd.

Lines from Ashbery's poems will be used to hopefully get more people interested in poetry.

Well, all of us here at WORD know how cool poetry is. Yay to MTV for realizing it as well.

Last week I was on vacation in Maine (it's this whole other state up north). The water was frigid but the weather was warm. The beach was sandy and the books were... gritty. For some reason, I decided to read two very upsetting novels. Don't get me wrong, they were both entertaining and engaging, but they were also not exactly what you would call "beach books".

A Thousand Splendid Suns
-Khaled Hosseini

I saw Mr. Hosseini speak last year at The National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Back then, he was talking about his first novel, The Kite Runner. What a book that was! Now, in A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini explores the female perspective of growing up in war-torn Afghanistan.

The day to day suffering of two women, Mariam and Laila, is written with just the right amount of sympathy that the reader feels pity, anger, and sorrow all at once. At the hands of uncaring fathers and violent husbands, Mariam and Laila have this in common: they have suffered greatly in their lives.

Together these two women from different generations bond together to find some solace in a world where women must hide their faces in the presence of men, where rockets fall from the sky and obliterate life, and where few people question the iron fists of dictators and terrorists that rule by spreading death and fear.

So no, it is not what I would call a "happy-time, fun, summer book". But it certainly is an extraordinary read.

Watch a video of Hosseini talking about A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Read an excerpt of A Thousand Splendid Suns.

In Cold Blood
-Truman Capote

Phillip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote in the 2005 film, Capote. Before I ever saw that movie, I knew about In Cold Blood. The book has been sitting in my bookshelf for years. I knew what it was about: a murder case from 1959 where a family of four was brutally attacked and killed in their home in the middle of the night. That's about all I knew. But it was enough to turn me away. Why would I want to read something like that? Why would anyone?

Because it is true.

The title alone is enough to chill your bones. If you can get past that to page 1, there's no turning back. Capote brings you immediately into the peaceful town of Holcomb, Kansas and introduces the Clutter family. The father, Herbert is well-respected and owns a prosperous farm. His wife, Bonnie, though prone to bouts of depression was a loving mother to her four children, Eveanna, Beverly, Kenyon, and Nancy. Eveanna and Beverly had moved out in 1959. Kenyon and Nancy were not so lucky.

The book explores every detail of the horrible crime. Capote went to Holcomb after the murders and spoke to just about everyone in town, from the chief of police to the regular Joe at the coffee shop. It was the author's intent to paint a picture of the All-American family in the All-American town and show how they were viciously wiped from existence by two, unfeeling killers running from their own unfortunate pasts.

If you're looking for a book with resolution, this is not it. In Cold Blood is a case study, certainly not a "happily ever after". When you're done with it, you'll definitely want to double check the locks on your doors before going to bed, and you'll feel compelled to hold your loved ones even tighter.

So no, it is not what I would call a "happy-time, fun, summer book". But it certainly is an extraordinary read.

It's Friday! Woo! And one of the best parts about Fridays (besides knowing that you have two days to relax) is that new movies come out. I, for one, have been seeing tons of movies this summer. There were pirates (read a review here and an interview with Geoffrey Rush here), wizards (read a review here and an interview with director David Yates here), and our favorite yellow family (read a review here and an interview with director David Silverman here). And don't forget a web-slinging superhero, a grouchy ogre, and a car that was more than meets the eye.

Wow, that's a lot of movies in one summer! So that's where all my paychecks disappeared to. Anyway, today a movie opens that I've been waiting for. It's The Nanny Diaries, based on the novel of the same name by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus. As I've mentioned before, I love chick lit. And I found this novel particularly fun, witty, and funny. The hilarious story of the mistreated nanny who must put up with all her employer's demands (such as dressing up as a Teletubby for Halloween) is chick lit at its finest. Which is why I'm a little nervous about the movie.

Last summer, The Devil Wears Prada, the movie based on the book by Lauren Weisberger, came out. It got great reviews, and Meryl Streep even earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the super-mean boss. And I liked the movie, I did. It's just that I liked the book better. There were entire scenes left out of the movie. Characters were completely changed. It just wasn't the same.

I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen with The Nanny Diaries. I don't want the picture in my mind to be tarnished. I don't want my appreciation of the story tainted.

Well, I'll probably go see it though. Because the book is always better than the movie anyway, right? Sure it is. So I might as well just enjoy the movie for what it is. I actually can't think of any movie that I liked better than the book--and I love movies! Can you think of any movies that you liked better than the book versions? I bet you can't!

Anyway, enjoy your weekend. Go see a movie or something. Or read the book.