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1. Poetry: April in Maine by May Sarton (1992)

Favorite Sentence: "There will be no going back."

—Picked by Brian Apel, Patent Attorney at Banner Witcoff in Chicago (Class of 2016)


2. Essay: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

Favorite Sentence: "Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.

—Picked by Ali Habhab, first-year associate at Weil, Gotshal & Gotshal in New York (Class of 2020) 


3. Fiction: Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare (2000)

Favorite Sentence: "Mark did his best to mask his newfound fear of her leaving him, since he was convinced that if she noticed it, she really would dump him on the spot. For the time being, he felt she was the only gangplank he had toward the future, and that if the plank were to break, he too would collapse in a heap."

—Picked by Justin Sucgang, Director of Center for Legal Education and Reform at De La Salle College of Law in Quezon City (LLM Class of 2019, Philippines)
Michigan Sentences: Here is the write-up of an interview with Professor Christiane Gruber of the art history department on the street art that was created during and after the Arab Spring.   Syllabus Sentences: Here is a set of videos I give students to help them think more creatively.
Book Recommendations
Nuance: "Not a Few"

Note how the phrase "not a few" gives you a chance to indulge in a stylish bit of understatement.
 

"I suppose it was ridiculous that it should trouble me not to be a doctor, as after all some doctors are pretty puny characters, and not a few I have met are in a racket, but I was thinking mostly about my childhood idol, Sir Wilfred Grenfell of Labrador."

—Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King (1959)


“Certain emotions may already be fermenting away in the laborious process of creating a coherent and cohesive national identity, but that quintessentially Portuguese feeling of yearning and nostalgia known as saudade, and all its by-products, had not yet been embraced by Portugal as a habitual philosophy of life, and this has given rise to not a few communication difficulties in society in general and to some degree of perplexity on a personal level as well."

—José Saramago, The Elephant’s Journey (2010)

Additional Resources
                                                                       
Online Course

Good with Words: Writing and Editing
Books     

Good with Words: Writing and Editing  
Notes on Nuance                                                    
The Syntax of Sports: Class 1 
The Syntax of Sports: Class 2
The Art of Procrastination
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