Booklove- back with a vengeance!

*Just a disclaimer: I wrote this post a few days ago, when it actually was booklove day. Unfortunately, we still don't have internet at the house, and first the Boy-Creature got a cold, and then he gave it to me, so we haven't been up for heading out to the library or coffeehouse much. So excuse the lateness.

Oh, booklove. How I've missed you. And there has been so much to report. It's been a busy few weeks, as I'm sure it is for everyone in this fine holiday season.

I think possibly I burned out just the teensiest bit after the NaBloPoMo madness. Like I said, I've learned that I prefer posting only when I really have something to say, and it did take some effort on my part to make myself sit down and blog everyday. So on some level, I was taking a break.

On another level, I actually did get pretty busy. Boy-Creature sort of did, too, so that took up some time as well, since we only have the one car, and we don't know our way around New Orleans that well, so there always had to be a driver (me) and a navigator (him). For the most part. I did have a few solo outings- most notably going to see Rear Window at the historic Prytania Theater in the Garden District. I love Jimmy Stewart, and he only gets better on the big screen. Plus, that's my favorite Hitchcock.

The other bit of busyness is that Mom and I were commissioned to do some paintings for the son of a client of hers. So I spent the better part of a week trolling art stores and stretching canvasses and sketching and painting. It was fun, but it took up a lot of reading (and knitting) time.

However, I've still managed to fly through a few books in the last three weeks. First of all, I finished Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, and it was so much fun. Switters is a fantastic character. I haven't read much Tom Robbins in the past, but there's always been a little voice in my mind telling me I should read more of his stuff. That little voice just got more ammunition.

In lesser news (because I'm saving the best for last), I'm still moseying my way through Happy Alchemy and Reading the OED. I'm enjoying them both, but because they're both non-fiction with shorter formats, I can read a little bit at a time and come back to them two weeks later without losing much. So I'll get through them, just probably not terribly soon, since I've got such fabulous reading going on in other areas.

The first is that I finally started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. And it's incredible. I'm kicking myself for having put it off this long. Within twenty four hours of starting it, I was already 150 pages in. It's thrilling. The story is great, and the characters are exquisitely drawn, and the way Michael Chabon weaves in WWII history alongside escapist magic and comic book lore is so engaging. If you haven't read it, read it. You can't possibly be disappointed. If you have read it, make somebody else read it.

My last bit of book news is something that's probably not as exciting to anyone else as it is to me, but here it is anyway. Another part of all the busy the last few weeks is that we have finally come back to Texas. We'll be here through Christmas and then spend New Years in Louisiana again, and then we'll come back and really get settled. So most of my week has been spent in getting rid of old stuff and trying to make room for our current stuff. It's a challenge making room for an entire other person and all his things in my little room that was already crammed full of things.

We have moved back into my Mom's house, as she's in Louisiana pretty much full time now, so we're having to deal with all of her stuff as well. And Mom and I are the kind of people who hang onto a lot of stuff. Boy-Creature is not. So since we got here, he's been going around the house picking up stuff like the broken-but-cool-looking antique telephone, or the formerly non-stick pan that is now scratched being being non-stick, or the pile of duplicate books we've culled from our shelves, and saying, "Why don't you get rid of this?" He's a get-rid-of-it kind of guy. We're hang-on-to-it-just-in-case-because-you-never-know kind of people. It makes for an interesting relationship.

But that's all beside the point. The point is that one of the things I was actually looking forward to in coming home was renewing my library card. Because I'm a book dork that way. So yesterday, I dropped the Boy-Creature at the coffee house with my laptop so he could use their wi-fi, and I trotted across the street and got a new card! And two books. I would have gotten more, but there was a cup of chai for me getting cold at the coffeehouse. Also, they didn't have very many of the Betsy-Tacy books, and I've been thinking lately about finally finishing the rest of that series.

I got Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's (aka the Yarn Harlot!) Knitting Rules! (which, incidentally, I have already finished) and Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book. It's been several years since I read the first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair, but I remembered liking it enough that I figured this would be good. I really did like the first one, too. Enough that parts of it have really stuck in my mind. I still remember the answer to "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" (read the book to find out! It's actually a pretty clever answer), and I remember loving like crazy the idea of them performing Shakespeare's Richard III like Rocky Horror. Now that is booklove. So I'm looking forward to reading this one, too.

So that's the first step in my getting back into Texas life, especially where the library is concerned. The other step will happen after New Years, when I know we'll be here to stay again. That's when I'll trot right back into the library and sign up as a volunteer! And I'll try and find a job, too, but whatever.