Distractions and diversions

I've been thinking about why I skipped doing a booklove post for the last two weeks, and I think I figured it out. I'm blaming sports.

I've never liked sports. Any of them. Even the ones like gymnastics and figure skating that are similar in some elements to dancing, the one thing I love most in the world. I can't even explain why ice dancing is weird to me. It just is.

But first the Saints are in the super bowl the weekend my mom (born and raised in New Orleans) is in town. So we went to a party and watched. Well. They watched, I sat in a corner and knit. And now it's the winter Olympics. I've never really watched the Olympics. Yes, they're big and exciting, but they're still sports, so I still don't really care.

But now I live with this boy, who not only really likes television, but loves the Olympics. I feel like the television has been on constantly for the last week and a half. And this is a very small house. It's hard to avoid. So not much reading has been getting done. But I'm trying.

I started reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes a couple of weeks ago, and as slow as it's going, I'm really enjoying it. I never doubted that I would, but there's still been some surprises. I don't know how I never knew that all the stories are from Watson's point of view. Especially since I know I read one of the stories in school, years and years ago, and I completely forgot that. The really nice surprise is that I love Watson as a character. He's not what I expected, from what I had seen from all the pop culture references that have come down through the years. I always had this vague feeling that he would always kinda bug me, but I'm finding him delightful. So even if it takes me much longer than I expected, I'm looking forward to making my way through the rest.

I made it to the library again yesterday, too. It was one of those days when I couldn't find what I was actually looking for, but in hunting for it, I came across other books I wanted to read even more. One is Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer. One of my best friends in college had a copy of this book, and I kept meaning to get a copy and read it myself. And for those reasons that always come up with that kind of thing, I never got around to it. So when I stumbled on it, I figured it's time, and grabbed it without any hesitation.

The other book I grabbed is called Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West. I found this book awhile back at Anthropologie (my favorite store, which once again I can't afford), and I always like the idea of it. It's another one of those books that's been on my Amazon wish list for months. I started reading it yesterday, and so far it's just ok. The whole first section is short little blurbs on historical sites, and it kind of reads like a tourist guidebook. Which I guess it is, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. So I'm thinking I'll probably end up sort of skimming this first section, and I'll read the rest more in depth. But I'll still make a note of any new places I desperately want to visit someday. I'll add them to the already sizable list.