October 25, 2009

A minor (for me) explosion of booklove

There has been so much reading in the last two weeks! In addition to the driving, and the sending out résumés and whatnot. Like I said, unemployment tends to have that effect on things. It also leads to more of me playing those hour-long game trials you can download. I must have played fifty of them last summer while I was killing time before moving to San Diego. And today it started again. I do better with structure in my life. I'm honestly kind of looking forward to finding a job.

But the reading. I finished Unweaving the Rainbow! Finally. It is very good, I can say that. I think it just takes me longer because I'm not used to reading things written the way scientific writing is done. There were parts when I would start comparing it in my mind to how I wrote research papers in high school and college. (Nerd confession: I secretly loved writing research papers. I had a really good system worked out, thanks in large part to my high school junior year English teacher, whom we sometimes referred to as the Burrismonster. It was a term of endearment, I swear. She's one of the much better English teachers I've had over the years. Thanks again, Mrs. Burris, and excellent English teachers everywhere!) There were other parts of Unweaving..., though, where I was racing along because it was all so interesting, and written in a way that was almost thrilling. I'm looking forward to reading a lot more of Dawkins' writing.

I had said that the next book I read would be Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And then I said it would be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. But it was neither. We stopped in at my favorite Half Price Books in Dallas (as well as my second favorite Half Price Books in Arlington) and I bought some books. And a Rasputina CD (Ohmygod, why did I not start listening to Rasputina sooner?!). One of the books I got was David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. I've listened to "This American Life" for ages, so I was already a fan of his work. I even recognized some of the essays in the book that he's read. It's a fantastic book. He's so marvelously strange and funny. I can't imagine anyone that couldn't find something to like in all his writings. He's another one that I want to read more of, and soon.

But I finished the Sedaris in about two days. So now I actually am reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and it's wonderful. I bought this book, I think, last summer (if not even earlier), and now that I'm finally reading it, I've been kicking myself for putting it off so long. I'm racing through it and gobbling up every word. My copy is over 1000 pages long, and I'm already two hundred pages in, after only two days, and I expect to read some more tonight. The story is so engaging, and the language is enchanting and thrilling. I'm getting completely sucked into this book. It's fantastic. I can't wait to read more.

I suppose there is one other booklove-related bit of news, but it's still something I'm mulling over. It's still pretty much just in the planning stages at this point, and I'm not entirely certain I'll go through with it yet (although I'm leaning towards a joyful and resounding YES!). So I'll hold off on announcing that, and see how the brainstorming goes this week.

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