New Year, New Spines, New Poll.

     Well.  Here we are again.

     The past few weeks have been chaotic, messy, heart-wrenching.  All that is over, the waves have calmed.  Now is a time for tranquility and healing. 

     It's a fresh year, and therefore time for a fresh start.  I've made personal resolutions, but I want to make one for Cracking Spines, too.  I feel as though I've been hiding behind the technicalities of the written word.  I've read a few older posts, and they're... well, they're boring.  There's no feeling to them.  So I resolve that this year, Cracking Spines will be reformed, reshaped.  I'm going to share the personal, the beautiful, the emotive side of reading.  I want to share with you, the readers, the Spine Crackers, the things that made me fall in love with reading, with opening a book and discovering the mystery of the pages.

      In honor of this resolution, there is a new poll!  You're in control, you're the boss now-- what am I reading in February?  Here are the options:

1. The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot
2. The Secret Diary of a Call Girl (Anonymous)
3. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr, Edward Cook)
4. Living a Jewish Life (Anita Diamant, Howard Cooper)
5. The Case for the Real Jesus (Lee Strobel)
6. Grania (Morgan Llywelyn)
7. The Great Influenza (John M. Barry)
8. Small Avalanches and Other Stories (Joyce Carol Oates)

     Ready?  Go!