Merry Christmas to all of you celebrating the holiday today! Here's hoping Santa left you some good reading under the tree. Enjoy!

Wanted to catch everyone before your stack of unread books grows from the holiday season. I just finished January's book (Revenge) and really enjoyed it. So keep it at the top of the pile and join in the discussion. I for one am now very interested in grabbing Fry's earlier works.

Was so pleasantly surprised to see everyone's comments! As for Don Quixote, I had to read it myself while tutoring someone, and from my experience the only way to finish it is to be paid to do so! So I have read it, but to tell you the truth, I remember more of the Decameron than I do DQ (currently in a box across an ocean and continent).

As for personal details, I think Mary's little blurb covered all the essentials (and nicely edited my truely unwieldy e-mail to her - ty M!), as dry as it was --I left all my interesting bits (cats, boyfriend, "fun" books & xtr-curricula stuff) behind me in Toronto. I will add, that Do-Hee denotes a Ms, not a Mr. I forget that it's not so clear in English and wasn't enitrely sure if y'all could deduce that from the facts presented (assuming that anyone cares).
In an effort to sound a little less like the geek that I admittedly am, I will mention that Ross has proclaimed in an episode of Friends that "they [linguists]'re wild"! So take heed boys and girls!
Seriously, am very glad to have joined and thanks for such a warm welcome.

Please join me in welcoming Do-Hee to BookBlog!

Until recently, Do-Hee was a graduate student studying linguistics at the University of Toronto. After burning out on nine straight years of post-secondary education, she’s back with mom and dad in a suburb of Seoul, which she calls "the Anaheim of Korea." She’s now getting some well-deserved rest and earning her keep by teaching English.

As an avid book lover (some of her faves include Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, E.M. Forster, and Jane Austen), Do-Hee found us because she was looking for people with whom to discuss the many books she now has the time to read. She was also impressed by the fact that our members are not shy when it comes to disliking a book and aren’t afraid to put it down if they’re not feeling a particular title. (Um, did anyone finish Don Quixote?) I have a feeling she’s going to fit right in here.

Welcome, Do-Hee!

A few of us are discussing Don Quixote in the entry below, but the vast majority of, well, everybody isn't joining in. Just out of curiosity, is it because the book was too long? Did you give up because it wasn't accessible? Do you think I suck as a moderator? Or are you just too busy with holiday stuff?

Yeah, so this was a long book. Sorry. I did choose it for a reason, however -- it was declared "the world's greatest novel" this past year. So that's how I'll start out this conversation: Can you see how Don Q might qualify as the world's greatest novel? If so, why? If not, what takes it out of the running?

As I haven't read every novel ever written, I can't pronounce Don Q the best ever written. However, here are the things that I'm guessing played into calling it the best:

The hero wasn't a godlike figure -- far from it.
Cervantes gets all meta for a while, using the book to talk about books.
You can't go wrong with scatalogical humor.

What do you think?

Don’t have time to finish Don Quixote in time for the discussion? Try one of these:

Man of La Mancha (movie musical starring Peter O’Toole)

Don Quixote (made for TV movie starring John Lithgow)

Nureyev's Don Quixote (performed by the Australian Ballet)

Cliffs Notes on Cervantes’ Don Quixote