maybe not a librarian

Edna O'Brien:  Life is a raging, storming sea which we're all in.

Who is influencing whom?

Dublin-born Colum McCann read one of Edna O'Brien's stories from her new Saints and Sinners at Symphony Space last night.  Her story conveyed exactly the same hard emotions as McCann's Everything in this Country Must, and it's about the same subject --  internecine troubles in Ireland.

Edna O'Brien of course has been writing for a long time.  Maybe neither writer influenced the other.   Maybe these hard stories are carried around in the hearts of the Irish and only occasionally written down in their full distress.

English not required

Times quotes U.S. Army's top recruiter that 9% of the population is propensed towards military service.