Category: Math

The Diary of Anne Frank (The Definitive Edition)

*NOTE: This is the Definitive Edition of Anne Frank’s diary. I have never read the common version which was originally published and heavily edited by Otto Frank. The older version cut out Anne’s hatred for her mother, negative comments about other Annex members, and Anne’s sexual thoughts/musings (which are almost pornographic) as she experienced puberty. The definitive version was first published in 1987 and has been banned from many schools.*

“Paper has more patience than people.” (page 6) Continue reading “The Diary of Anne Frank (The Definitive Edition)”

When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead

“I still think about the letter you asked me to write. It nags at me, even though you’re gone and there’s no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It’s all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.” (page 2) Continue reading “When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead”

The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster

“Who could possibly have left such an enormous package and such a strange one? For, while it was not quite square, it was definitely not round, and for its size it was larger than almost any other big package of smaller dimension that he’d ever seen.

Attached to one side was a bright-blue envelope which said simple: “FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME.” …
He thought about it for quite a while and then opened the envelope, but just to be polite.
“ONE GENUINE TURNPIKE TOLLBOOTH,” it stated — and then it went on:
“EASILY ASSEMBLED AT HOME, AND FOR USE BY THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER TRAVELED IN LANDS BEYOND.”” (Page 10) Continue reading “The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster”

The Housekeeper and The Professor– Yōko Ogawa – translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder

“Every morning, during the entire time I worked for the Professor, we repeated this numerical q and a at the front door. To the Professor, whose memory lasted only eighty minutes, I was always a new housekeeper he was meeting for the first time, and so every morning he was appropriately shy and reserved. He would ask my shoe size or telephone number, or perhaps my zip code, the registration number on my bicycle, or the number of brushstrokes in the characters of my name; and whatever the number, he invariably found some significance in it. Talk of factorials and prime flowed effortlessly, seeming completely natural, never forced.” (Page 7) Continue reading “The Housekeeper and The Professor– Yōko Ogawa – translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder”