Reading Blog

Finished O! Pioneers!
Had a fabulous discussion with a friend about it.

Also read Terry Hatchett's "A Hat Full of Sky," which was a pretty good book for youth. Really liked it and caught myself thinking with the accents of the Nac Mac Feegle's. Sent it to my 11 year-old sister and we'll see how she likes it.

Picked up "The Greek Mind" as my true. Not as dry as I'd expect. Haven't touched it in a week or so. I don't think I'll come out of it with much insight.

I intended to read Crime & Punishment but found myself at the public library with no recollection of exactly what's in my "Book of Great Books." I was confident "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was the Hemingway selected, so that's what I chose.
That night I rented "The Brothers Bloom" from redbox. If you like cinema, watch it. Trust me.

The next morning I discovered that at least the elder brother was inspired by a character in James Joyce's "Ulysses." Since it sounded so familiar, I thought I had it at home. I didn't. I then concluded it must have been in the BoGB. It wasn't. I traded Hemingway for Joyce, regardless. If a movie that good is associated with a book I've heard of, I'm reading it.

Not as quickly as I'd like.

I should steal the idea from a friend to read 25 books and 25 poems a year. (She does 50 books, but she reads faster and lighter.)

Reading Journal

I have got to start spending more time reading!

I need to finish reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles in 2 months and I have about 200 pages left. I also need to finish Coming of Age in Mississppi or a True in order to start my annual holiday re-read of O! Pioneers.

Old: Tess
New: Wimpy Kid (finished in less than 2 days)
Random: Mississippi
True: Something short
Old: O! Pioneers

If I can't find something short and true on my shelves, I'll hit up Half Price. Which I can do since I recently purged my shelves of books with language or themes I wouldn't be comfortable discussing with the prophet Thomas S. Monson. I only had problems with one: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." I read it twice in college and I think once after. It has some pretty amazing quotes in it, and it really goes in depth about soldier's experiences in and after Vietnam. So of course there's vulgarity and lewdness. So I skimmed it and wrote down some of my most favorite quotes.

I'll share some of those here.

p. 20 "They were afraid of dying, but they were even more afraid to show it....They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die....They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to."

p. 23 "You couldn't burn the blame."

p. 32 "...as I write about these things, the remembering is turned into a kind of rehappening."

p. 34 "You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present."

p. 36 "What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end."

p. 38 "Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes, remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."

p. 157 "Telling stories seemed a natural, inevitable process, lie clearing the throat. Partly catharsis, partly communication, it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what had happened to me, how I'd allowed myself to get dragged into a wrong war, all the mistakes I'd made, all the terrible things I'd seen and done."
p. 158 "By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. you make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened...and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain."

p. 179, the definition of metafiction, "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth."

p. 180 "What stories can do, I guess, is make things present.
I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again."

p. 192 "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends."

p. 225 "But this too is true: stories can save us....in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world."

Reading Journal

Go me! I got a chapter into "Dream Power" and then misplaced the book. Haven't seen it for a week. Haven't torn my life apart looking for it, either. I wanted to read "Indian Lawyer" before I loaned it to a friend I had mentioned it to. From what I remembered about the book, I thought he might have liked it. But it had been a while (5 years or so) since I had read it and wanted a refresher. So my plan was just to read that as my random.

I started reading it at the blood drive this morning. I got maybe 5 pages in and noticed that every page had had a swear word on it. Considering it begins with inmate conversations and most of them were of the tamer variety, I chose not let it stick. But then I saw the mother of all swear words and put the book back in my purse. I've gotten a lot more particular about what I read. Which will probably mean an impending purging of my library.

I'm just glad I read it before I loaned it to my friend, though. I'd hate to be responsible for exposing him to that language.

But that means I'm back to last week: Only my Old. Which I can't read right now because I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting for 5 hours, and the hardbound complete works of Thomas Hardy would probably qualify. So I'm back to my shelves to pick out a Random. Maybe I should re-read "Coming of Age in Mississippi."

Writing Journal, Poetry

I've been having a lot of dreams lately. For about 3 weeks now. I mean, like, a lot. At least 10 a week. It's been exhausting, mentally speaking. And the vast majority of them are not pleasant. They aren't frightening or night terrors or anything-there are no hooded figures chasing me around at night-but I've been feeling panicked while dreaming. Like needing to leave a particular place or being concerned about someone else in the dream.

I'm used to my dreams having an impact on my life, but never at this frequency.
I'm also feeling a little stressed tonight, since I found out I have to put together a 16 page magazine/newspaper this week while going about my daily life.
So I decided to write a poem about it. I don't know why I chose the title "Hyperventilate," so if you've got a better one, feel free to shoot it at me.


Hyperventilate
I've been lost inside myself.
I don't know how I got here,
Or what purpose this trip is serving,
But I need to get out.
And fast!

My ears feel like they're
Caught in a vice grip.
My dreams are getting
To be too much.

There's not enough time in the day
For me to deal with their unpleasantness.
Why can't the panic attack me in waking hours?
Why must it assault me in my sleep,
When I am most powerless against it?

Why does my subconscious think it fair to
Heap this on me once a year?

Reading Journal

I finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance today while on the treadmill after work. It had some quoteables, but my interest in it fizzled out for the last 1/4 of the book. The last couple of chapters piqued me up again, but for the most part it was all in the beginning.

I'll try to pick out the quotes this week. I'll blog out my excuse on my "home blog." (Too lazy to insert a link.)

Time to shelve Zen and the Art of MM (after I quote it, of course) and move on to the New.
I wish it could be the 2010 BCR (which I've barely looked at, shamefully), but that leaves me without a purse book. So Diary of a Wimpy Kid it is. Maybe I'll have it finished by the time it hits redbox. Won't that be nice?

Reading Journal

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I don't have the time at the moment to go over all of the intriguing and marvelous quotations I've discovered in this book since the last time I posted. But I would like to share with you a story involving it.

I like it when a book can be applicable to everyday life and when it easily connects to current circumstances. (I've also been liking a lot of alliteration as of late.) Since this is my purse book, I had it with me when I went to help a friend fix his car. Some seemingly minor thing got messed up and it snowballed. The nut got stripped, so we had to make a run to the hardware store. Then we had to make a run to another hardware store because the first one didn't have any. It got rather frustrating.

After the part was satisfactorily fixed, my friend took the car for a test drive. I read while he was gone. Here is a portion of what I read (beginning on page 272); you can decide whether or not it applied to the situation at hand:

I like the word "gumption: because it's so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn't likely to reject anyone who comes along....I like it also because it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with Quality. He gets filled with gumption.
...
A person filled with gumption doesn't sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He's at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what's up the track and meeting it when it comes. That's gumption.
...
The gumption-filling process occurs when one is quiet long enough to see and hear and feel the real universe, not just one's own stale opinions about it. Biut it's nothing exotic. That's why I like the word.
...
If you're going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven't got that you might as well gather up all the other toold and put them away, because they won't do you any good.
Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven't got it there's no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there's absolutely no way in this whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. it's bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption.
...
...Throughout the process of fixing the machine things always come up, low-quality things, from a dusted knuckle to an accidentally ruined "irreplaceable" assemply. these drain off gumption, destroy enthusiasm and leave you so discouraged you want to forget the whole business. I call these things "gumption traps."
There are hundreds of different kinds of gumption traps....I know it seems as though I've stumbled into every kind of gumption trap imaginable. What keeps me from thinking I've hit them all is that with every job I discover more. Motorcycle maintenance gets frustrating. Angering. Infuriating. That's what makes it interesting.

Now go back and read that through again. Only every time you see "motorcycle maintenance," replace it with "life."

Reading Journal

Okay, so I know I just updated last night, but it served as motivation for me to finish Six Hours One Friday. I honestly thought I had more to read of it, but that's just because the last ~60 pages are a Study Guide. Since I was only reading it and not studying it, I figured I'd skip that part.

But I wanted to capture the quotes I found since my last update....Okay, quote. I'd hate for something I noticed to go unshared (even if nobody reads this, which I don't think anyone does).

p. 152
"'A pity,' we lament, 'that a human would be so imprisoned by fear [25 years] that he would cease to live.'
"A life wasted pacing up and down in a self-made cell of fear. It is shocking. It is tragic. It is a pity. And it is also very common."


There. Now I'm ready to shelve the book and get geared up for my Briar Cliff Review!!!!

Reading Journal

For anyone who cares, I apologize for not updating the lit blog like I said I would.

I'm still reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (I feel very blessed to finally be able to spell that word correctly on only the second try.) I also started Six Hours One Friday by Max Lucado. I intend to have Six Hours finished by May 31 so I can start on my 2010 issue of the Briar Cliff Review. Which I will be picking up on Saturday.

Things have kind of fizzled out with Zen and A of MM. Probably because I wanted more MM and less Zen. Six Hours is pretty good, as far as Christian literature goes. It's at least kept me interested through the whole book, even if I don't understand the organization of it. Both have provided me with some quotable passages over the past, erm, month. *sheepish grin* I've been busy, ok?

We'll start with Zen and Art of MM
p. 75
"A photograph can show a physical image in which time is static, and a mirror can show a physical image in which time is dynamic, but I think what he saw on the mountain was another kind of image altogether which was not physical and did not exist in time at all. It was an image nevertheless and that is why he felt recognition."
"He wanted to free himself from his own image. He wanted to destroy it because the ghost was what he was and he wanted to be free from the bondage of his own identity."
Who hasn't felt that?

p. 107
"...he is like someone or some creature that has found an exit from a cage he did not even know was around him, and is wildly roaming over the countryside visually devouring everything in sight."
I kinda wanna be like that.

p. 110
"People spend their entire lives at those lower altitudes without any awareness that this high country exists."

____________
Moving on to Six Hours...
The back cover holds a pretty good description of the book.
"No matter what the storm clouds bring, you can face your pain with courage and hope. For two thousand years ago--six hours, one Friday--Christ firmly planted in bedrock three solid anchor points that we all can cling to:
Our lives are not futile. Our failures are not fatal. Our deaths are not final.
For the heart scarred with futility, that Friday holds purpose. For the life blackened with failure, that Friday holds forgiveness. And for the soul looking into the tunnel of death, that Friday holds deliverance."
See why I wanted to read it?

I love his style and will share some excerpts now.

p. 21
"A witness could not help but ask: Jesus,...what holds you to the cross? Nails don't hold gods to trees. What makes you stay?"

p. 23
"The one who has the right to condemn you provided the way to acquit you. You make mistakes. God doesn't. And he made you."

"He only went in to prove he could come out."

I want to use chapter 3 in a lesson sometime. The whole chapter is good.

p. 40
Lucado recants the tale of the woman at the well. How she goes at midday to avoid the gossipy murmurings about her. Jesus is there, waiting, and tells her who He is. She then turns and runs into the city with the news.
"Did you notice what she forgot? She forgot her water jar. She left behind the jug that had caused the sag in her shoulders. She left behind the burdens she brought."
And where did she leave them, I ask? With the Messiah. What an insight!

p. 41
"For some of you the story of these two women is touching but distant. You belong. You are needed and you know it. You've got more friends than you can visit and more tasks than you can accomplish.
"Insignificance will not be chiseled on your tombstone.
"Be thankful.
"But others of you are different....
"You know what it's like to have no one sit by you at the cafeteria. You've wondered what it would be like to have one good friend. You've been in love and you wonder if it is worth the pain to do it again.
"And you, too, have wondered where in the world God is."

p. 52
Describing doubt, one of Satan's favorite tools.
"He'll pester you. He'll irritate you. He'll criticize your judgment. He'll kick the stool out from under you and refuse to help you up. He'll tell you not to believe in the invisible yet offer no answer for the inadequacy of the visible.
"He's a mealy-mouthed, two-faced liar who deals from the bottom of the deck. His aim is not to convince you but to confuse you. He doesn't offer solutions, he only raises questions.
"Don't let him fool you."

p. 56
"When a whip ripped his sides, he didn't turn and command the awaiting angels to stuff that whip down that soldier's throat."

p. 63
"Your complaints are not over teh lack of necessities but the abundance of benefits. You bellyache over the frills, not the basics; over benefits, not essentials. The source of your problems is your blessings."

p. 73
"I put a bumper sticker on my bicycle."

p. 100
Lucado speculation on some of what God may have been thinking during those Six Hours:
"Soldiers, you think you lead him? Ropes, you think you bind him? Men, you think myou sentence him? He heeds not your commands. He winces not at your lashes. It is my voice he obeys. It is my condemnation he dreads. And it is your souls he saves."

p. 108
I'm going to risk pilfering even more time and just tell the story in Lucado's words.
"My wife has a cousin named Rob. Rob is a great guy. His good heart and friendly smile endear him to everyone. He is the kind of fellow you call upon when you can't call on on anyone else.
"So when the Girl Scouts needed someone to dress up like the Cookie Monster at a fund-raiser, who did they call? You got it. Rob.
"There were a few problems. First, no one anticipated the day of the campaign would be so hot. Second, Rob didn't know that the costume would be so big. Third, who would have thought that Rob's glasses would fog up so badly he couldn't see? As he was sitting on the stage waiting his turn to speak, the heat inside the mask covered his glasses with fog. He couldn't wipe them off--his paws were too big to fit in the eyehole.
"He started to worry. Any minute he would be called upon to give a talk, and he couldn't even see where the podium was!
"He whispered for help. The costume was to thick; his cries went unheard.
"He began to wave his hands. What he heard in response were the squeals of delight from the kids. The thought he was waving at them!
"As I heard this story I chuckled...and then I sighed. It was too familiar. Cries for help muffled behind costumed faces? Fear hidden behind a painted smile? Signals of desperation thought to be signs of joy?
"Tell me that doesn't describe our world."

p. 113
"He [Christ] later stretched out his hands as open as he could. He forced his arms so wide apart that it hurt. And to prove that those arms would never fold and those hands would never close, he had them nailed open."

p. 123
"You only kill a king if he has a kingdom."

p. 141
"A man reaches a point where his desperation is a notch above his dignity. He shrugs his shoulders. 'What choice do I have?'"

Reading Journal

I finished Catcher in the Rye as well as a juvenile lit book on Thomas Edison. I learned a bit from both of them. Edison had a pretty interesting life as an inventor and I think a lot can be learned from him about how to, and how not to, achieve success in life.

The first time I read Catcher in the Rye was my sophomore of high school. Voluntarily, nonetheless. I had a friend a year ahead of me who needed a copy to read for his English class. (I ended up taking a different English class my junior year, so I didn't take the regular one.) I borrowed one from my Communications Arts teacher and read it either before or after I loaned it to him.
I got more out of it this time. Mainly, I finally came to my own understanding as to why it's titled the way it is. I mean, I had read the line towards the end where he says that he wants to be that person in the song "if a body catch a body coming through the rye" (or something like that; I'm too lazy to look for the exact reference). He talks, essentially, about how he wants to save kids from going over the edge. I'll probably have to read it again before I can explain what I mean.

Another thing that was shared with me was that the band Explosions in the Sky got a lot of inspiration for their 5th studio album from the book. Sure enough, it's true. At least, that's my assessment from reading the book and wiki article that said so.


A couple of days ago, I started Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And it's pretty good so far. I'm not very far into it, but I already like the author. Not sure where the book plans on going, but that's okay. I find myself really identifying with the author, so I think I might end up with a new best friend after this book! On a superficial level, Robert M. Pirsig "writ[es] and edit[es] technical manuals...for a living." (p. 24)

Every so often, I meet someone and I know pretty early on that we're going to be bosom buddies. Sometimes that happens with books, too. It happened with this one.
Page 3 (first page of text)
"I'm happy to be riding back in this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that."
Page 4.
"We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on 'good' rather than 'time' and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes."
That same page includes why he likes riding so much, and a lot of it applies to why I like riding my bicycle so much. Which makes me interested to read the rest of the book.

And his drunken discourse delivered in delirium from pages 28-32 on ghosts and Isaac Newton certainly was a nice distraction while I was giving blood.

I really recommend this book to everyone who doesn't mind getting beyond the superficial every once in a while. Seriously, I'm only on page 32 and I'm already trying to decide who to loan it to first! Years from now, I may end up having to get another copy because I've read it so much. I just hope it doesn't disappoint me and fizzle out towards the end.

Reading Journal

Lunatic Express, by Carl Hoffman

A great book for me to add on my next cycle. And with my tax refund, I may even be able to purchase it, should it not be at the library. I'll check, anyway, though.

From what I can tell, it's about a guy who travels on the worst-rated airlines, buses and trains around the world for safety.

I'll be able to tell you more about it after I listen to Michael Feldmen's Whaddya Know? show!! (I love that show mostly because of the website's address. Haven't been to it in years, but it's www.notmuch.com)

I read a few lines of Catcher in the Rye today. I've had a couple of busy and stressful weeks, not leaving me with much time or mental capacity for reading. My book on Edison isn't getting read as much as I'd like it to, either. Figured out why it's so easy and enjoyable to read, though: it's classified as juvenile literature. haha....maybe I can finish it this week and see if my little sister wants to read it. (She's 10 but likes to learn. In a cool way; she's also very social. I kinda wanna be her.)

Here's the list
Old: Catcher in the Rye
New: Edison
Random: plan is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
True: Six Hours One Friday
Old: something by Thomas Hardy, preferably from my Book of Great Books
New: Lunatic Express

Writing Journal

Assume what you'd like to about this one. Just remember what assuming does to the both of us.

Making Light
I've heard him breathe,
I've seen him cry.
I found out
He's afraid of goodbye.

I've seen him dance,
I've heard him sing.
I found out
He's afraid of a ring.

If I'm the best thing
To happen in years,
It's far past time
For him to face his fears.

Writing Journal

Well, then...I guess I should let you know that I'm not failing at writing 40 poems in 40 days. There are two reasons I'm not posting all of them. One being that some of them reveal information too personal for me to share with my known public. At least at this point in time. Maybe by the time I feel the poem is finally finished, whatever is holding me back from posting it will be less cumbersome. Or I'll be more detached and therefore more comfortable sharing those feelings from a distance.

The other reason is that they're being held hostage in various notebooks. Last year, I had a pretty regular schedule, so I could at least keep them in the same notebook and post them at about the same time each day. This year, not so much. So far. Maybe this will change, too.

That all being said...I was glancing through some of the poems and noticed that one I wrote towards the beginning of this challenge (and therefore have forgotten about) has a line (the last one) that carried itself over into the theme of the one today. I'll share the first one with you, but today's is rather too personal. (I hope anyone reading understands and suggests a title.)

untitled
I've taken risks before
Now I'll take a risk again.
I'll calculate the cons,
And pray the pros are real,
Not another pipe dream.

It was a pleasure coming here,
And it won't be easy easing out.
I need to refresh, restart, renew,
Just like you advise me to do.

I'll change my life
And change my ways,
Then leave this place behind.

Don't worry about losing me,
You lost me long ago.

I wish I was going to miss you more.

Writing Journal

Here I am at the end of another day, without a poem. I'm mentally exhausted, but did find myself captivated by the way a little boy was looking at our cherry pastries this afternoon. Let's see what happens when I use that for inspiration...

Cherry
He presses his buggy blue eyes to the glass,
Framed by his delicate fingers
To see the pastries better.
As though he believes that
He can get close enough to taste them
From where he's standing.

His mom glances down while ordering,
As though she's afraid he's going to
Reach his hand through the glass
To grab the cherry one
And devour it instantly.
He only dreams.

Writing Journal

I'm too lazy to keep track of what day of the challenge it is. And I'm too "busy" (mostly lazy) to update each day. That's partly why I need a regular schedule...that's an entirely different thing, though.

Tonight, I bring you today's poem. Created in this very blog entry typing space. Because I don't see the point in opening a word document to copy and paste or wasting a piece or two of paper and some ink.
....
so, now that I'm finally caught up on facebook, I can start...

Vaguebooking
Is pretty sure she barely made it home.
Wonders where she went instead.
(No, not really. Is pretty sure she knows.)
Considers moving furniture, just to make some waves.
Knew that was a bad idea.
Wishes there was more.
Wants the wanting to go away.
Likes the smell of sleep.
Has a headache.
Is hungry but doesn't want to eat;
Is tired but doesn't want to sleep.
Hates waiting for those e-mails.
Needs to send some e-mails out.
Has so much to get done tomorrow.
Hopefully doesn't have to walk.
Can't wait until Tuesday.
Is ready to be done with it all.

Writing Journal

Well, it's Lenten Season again. I decided to do the 40 poems in 40 days dealio once more. And since I'm not Catholic, it doesn't matter if I don't do exactly 40 poems in 40 days. (Just looking at last year's results, I'm being realistic here.)

Today's was a quick list poem and, again true to last year, utter crap.
But it's a poem, which is something I've been meaning to do more often.

untitled
The list of things I need to be
Is as long as what I need to do.
Which one should I tackle first?
The doing seems more feasible
Than the being.
Let's start there.

Create the spreadsheet.
Get more notebooks.
Write the check
(Put it in the mail).
Fill the dresser.
Empty the box.
Finish the book.
Finish the blanket.
Fix the other one.
Wash the dishes.
Find something to wear tomorrow.
Pack the change of clothes tonight.
Figure out who is driving where.
Eat something
(More than a handful of saltines).
Read the article.
Fix the article.
Resize the ads.
Write a poem.

Writing Journal

I've been picking up poetry again. Most of what I've been coming up with is too personal for me to post right now, though.

I did discover over the week of Christmas that I have to tap myself when trying to figure out the syllables for a haiku. I can't tap the table or someone else's leg; it has to be my own. I guess I have to feel the weight of my fingertips in order to feel the poem. (Yeah, that was intentionally artsy-fartsy.)

To prove that I've been writing, here's the haiku I was composing when I learned the above quirk.

One Way
There is only one
Way to kiss the insides: to
Love as He doth love.

Reading Journal

Well, I finished the first book of 2010 tonight. Yep, I finally finished O Pioneers! A good read, as always. I was a little hesitant to read it tonight, since I was in the middle of the White Mulberry section, and that one is particularly depressing. And I've been of such good spirits lately that I didn't want to lose that. But I pushed through it, anyway. And, boy, am I glad I did! I forgot how much the ending cheers me up. Alexandra's story has always brought a peaceful feeling that I don't get from many other stories. Here's what she says to Carl at the very end of the book. (Not quite the final lines.)

She admits to belonging to the land "now more than ever. You remember what you once said about the graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it is we who write it, with the best we have."
...
"Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said Alexandra suddenly. "Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference will that make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while."


I finished The Greatest Virtue a while ago. It was commonplace.

I started Tweak, but don't feel comfortable reading that on Sundays. I'm really hoping it picks up, though. I don't know how much more I can take of it. And it better end well, or I'll be mad.

Looking forward to starting Dreams of My Russian Summers. This is one I picked up a few days ago, when Half Price was having a 20% of sale. It's my Random.
List time!!
New: Tweak
Random: Dreams of My Russian Summers
True: Planet of the Umps (tale of Ken Kaiser, the only baseball umpire to make a name for himself)
Old: Catcher in the Rye (I just discovered that I do have a copy of this book, despite thinking otherwise. It's been so long since I read it that I want to see if I still like it.)

Off I go to reading land!!