Currently re-reading some classics, which I'm teaching next semester in a class on belief and non-belief in Victorian literature: On the Origin of Species (OK, not strictly *literary* but important to the Victorian world view), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Peter Pan, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and of course, my favorite Victorian page-turner: Dracula.

And I've been asked to write a review for a local paper on Carl Hiassen's Sick Puppy. Hiassen is an entertaining and inventive Florida writer who comes up with some wonderfully convoluted plots and characters, and who usually throws in an environmental agenda, underlying the twists and turns of action. I find his books great for downloading to the iPod for long road trips.