Much Madness is Divinest Sense

My name is Dana Huff, and welcome to my blog.  Although in my archives, visitors will find a little bit of everything, this blog is now primarily a literary blog where you can find discussion of books—books I’m currently reading, books I’ve finished, and books I’ve loved.  You will also find discussion of literary matters as they touch my fancy.

I am a high school English teacher and English department chair; you can learn more about my school activities by visiting my education site.

You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and lots of other places. I usually use the username danahuff or danamhuff.

I am the mother of three: Sarah, Maggie, and Dylan, and married to Steve.

If you think you know me and wonder if you’ve found the right person, feel free to contact me via the link in the navigation bar along the top.

Ratings

Rating: The book was excellent.

Rating: The book was pretty good.

Rating: The book was OK.

Rating: I didn’t like the book.

Rating: I hated the book.

I award half-stars for books that fall in the middle of two categories.

Blog Title

The title of this blog comes from a favorite poem of Emily Dickinson’s, “Much Madness is divinest Sense” (Franklin 620).

Much Madness is divinest Sense—
To a discerning Eye—
Much Sense—the starkest Madness—
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail—
Assent—and you are sane—
Demur—you’re straightway dangerous—
And handled with a Chain—

Policies

Your email address is collected if you leave a comment on this site, but it is not sold or given to any other parties or used for any purpose aside from verifying that real people are leaving comments rather than spambots. I use Statcounter and Feedburner to collect statistical information about readership, but this information is not shared. When visitors comment on this blog, cookies will be stored on their computers. This is purely a convenience, so that the visitor won’t need to re-type all their information again when they want to leave another comment. Three cookies are set for commenters: 1) comment author, 2) comment author e-mail, and 3) comment author URL. All the data in the cookies is stored hashed. When the visitor returns to this blog, WordPress checks for the existence of their cookie, and then tries to compare their hashed data with the values stored in the WordPress database. The commenter cookies are set to expire a little under one year from the time they’re set.

Though I make every effort to ensure that sites I link to are not objectionable, the changing nature of the Web makes it impossible for me to ensure that the sites have no objectionable content; I am not responsible for objectionable content on any links from this site.

The focus of this blog is books, and I am unable to plug your product, group, organization, or event unless it 1) is related to books and reading, and 2) is a topic I think readers will find interesting and I am interested in. You may contact me about your product, group, or organization if you think it meets either of these criteria, but I still may decide not to blog about it for a variety of reasons.

Please note that I do not accept advertising or guest blog posts on my site.  I take ownership and control (as well as responsibility) for all the content that appears on this site.  Accepting advertising and guest posts makes it very difficult for me to own, control, and be responsible for 100% of my content.  Requests for advertisement and guest posts will be ignored.

Full Disclosure

Because of recent changes to Federal Trade Commission rules, bloggers must disclose gifts and payments. In order to comply with this ruling, here is what you need to know:

• Unless I state otherwise in the post, I have purchased the book being reviewed in each post. If I have not purchased the book (i.e., it was an ARC, a gift, a loan, or something else), I will state that fact in the review.
• All reviews on this site are my own opinion, and I have not been paid to review any book (or other product), nor will I accept payment to review such.
• I am not averse to accepting books from publishers looking for me to review books as long as they understand my review will be my own opinion of the book, which is the same deal one has with professional book reviewers.
• As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. My purpose in reviewing books at this site is not to rack up affiliate sales. I link to books to make it easier for interested parties to purchase, and honestly, I have chosen Amazon over other sellers because it is my personal favorite store, and I have had great service.
• All the writing on this site is my own, and I do not accept guest posts or advertising.

In short, if I gush about it, you can believe I really liked it and not just because someone paid me.