[This week it
was back—the very popular annual
post-Valentine’s non-favorites series, in which I AmericanStudied some of
those things that just don’t quite do it for me. Leading up to the annual
crowd-sourced airing of grievances, which could always use more griping in
comments!]
Other
non-favorites:
Matthew Teutsch Tweets,
“I would have to say Andrew
Jackson &, even though I like the writing, The Great Gatsby.” He adds, “I do
find Nick Carraway a fascinating narrator. Wrote
this a while back.”
Joe Fruscione goes with, “Henry
James. Big ol’ meh.” He adds, “Also: Deadpool. I just don’t get it.” On
James, Matthew responds, “Coming back to James, after a few years, I liked him.
Granted, I was reading shorter works, such as “Daisy Miller.”
Rachel Weeks
Blight nominates, “HMH
history/geography textbooks (iBooks and paper).
I use them because they are cheap and basic methods for covering info that
might appear on a standardized text someday and I get something for the kids'
homeschool portfolios, but I hate their over-reliance on History Channel
videos. Speaking of which, I also have a
love/hate relationship with the
History Channel. It's like the Red Lobster of
channels: I have high hopes for what could be and am always disappointed.”
Paige Swarbrick writes, “I dislike the ‘memoirs’ that are touted as
completely real but turn out to be mostly untrue. Two that come to mind are A Million Little Pieces by James Frey and Smashed: Story of a Drunked Girlhood by Koren Zailckas.”
Matt Chambers votes for, “Current political and social commentary in
the US that either draws shallow comparisons to the 1930s/40s or treats events
as exceptional (for example, I've been living under a pretty similarly awful
regime for over a year now).”
Kisha
Tracy adds Catcher in the Rye, noting, “I find it insufferable,” to which Quintin
Burks responds, “I completely agree!”
Maggi
Smith-Dalton writes, “I have had a strong
opinion on this for some time, however I will not annouce it publicly to fellow
AmStudies/history folks any more. I've had it with that, frankly. Suffice to
say, I feel the mess we're in right now in our country has been seeded, however
inadvertently, however unintentionally, by the things I have worried about in
our community for some years. Don't forget I have been in the public sphere for
most of my professional life.”
Tim
McCaffrey notes that the phrase “in my heart of
hearts” “makes me cringe every time.” He adds, “Also, the work of Joseph Heller never clicked with me.”
Laura Mulligan Thomas goes with two “phrases in education circle these days”:
“sharing out” and “have a conversation around it.”
Nicole Sterbinsky writes, “This has never happened to me
personally but I hate hearing it, ‘You look good for x-amount of kids.’ Or ‘You
look good for a mom.’ It's a backhanded compliment on quite a few levels.”
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. Responses to
these non-favorites? Others you’d share? Join the communal gripe-fest!
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