Tag: reading

Scared by the Numbers

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Since adding all of the books from Book Lust To Go to my challenge list (all 1,600+ of them) I have been wondering how much time this has added to the challenge. I was curious. How many years will it take me to finish reading 5,500+ books? Exactly how old will I be when it is all said and done?
First I needed to know how many books I have left to read. The grand total is 5026. This includes books of varying lengths – anything from graphic novels, children’s picture books to 1,000 page biographies. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.

Then I needed to find out my average reading “speed.” What did I accomplish in a year’s time? On average, I read 109 books a year – give or take a poem, short story or article or two. This average of 109 books included books for fun, books for LibraryThing, and the books on the challenge list. However, here is what I found out from doing the math: if I only read challenge books from here on out it would take me 45 years to finish every book indexed in Book Lust, More Book Lust and now, Book Lust To Go. Scary. I honestly don’t think I will live that long. Frightening. Seriously.
What to do? I refuse to give up reading the books from LibraryThing’s Early Review program. And, and. And! I will not ignore the gift books I receive from family or friends. So. What happens now? I either have to face facts that I will never finish reading 5026 books in my lifetime OR be a little more selective about what takes up my time. I like option #2 better.

Here are my ideas for amendments:

  • Instead of reading 50 pages before giving up on a boring book I only read one chapter or 25 pages – whichever comes first. I’m a pretty good judge of what books will bore me to death and which ones I will “book” through (pun totally intended).
  • Of the books I have read before instead of rereading them I will install the “Odd page rule.” The odd page rule is to only read the odd pages and skip the evens. (the rule right now is if I don’t remember the plot, key characters or how it ended I have to reread the entire thing. Not happening).
  • Third and final change: the movie rights rule. If a book has been made into a movie AND the book author has had a hand in writing the screenplay AND the movie has won an Academy Award I give myself permission to watch the movie instead. I am not a movie person so I doubt this last rule will really come into play that often.

I will be in my 90s when I finally finish the challenge. People have asked me why it matters. They like to point out that Nancy Pearl didn’t read every book she recommends. She had help. People made suggestions. I get it. I don’t care what Pearl has or hasn’t read. Her reading list is not my concern. The pages MY eyes fall upon are what matter and I want to read them all. If I’m lucky.

April ’12 was…

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April 2012 was a few days ago. Yup. Late again. I have been busy and not just with the personal stuff. There has been some Challenge related stuff going on as well. For starters, I needed to put together a plan for implementing the additional 1,698 books Book Lust To Go would add to my Lust Challenge list (damn you, Hub!). I needed to figure out a) how to evenly spread all 1,698 books out over 12 months, b) what reasons would I give to the new assortment of books and, c) find the time to organize it all. I’m not finished, but I think I’ve figured it all out. It looks like each month will have 350-400 books and I’ll be reading in honor of annual festivals and historical events, as well as national holidays. It should be pretty interesting.

But, enough about all that – Here is the list of books read for the month of April:

  • John Barleycorn by Jack London ~ read in honor of Alcohol Awareness month
  • Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser ~ read in honor of Food month
  • The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald ~ read in honor of Humor Month
  • Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier ~ read in honor of the Civil War
  • Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien ~ read to finish the series (confessional: I didn’t get through the whole thing)
  • These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ read to finish the series

What else? I read The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy by David Halberstam (not scheduled) and Longitude by Dava Sobel (also not scheduled). I also read Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir for LibraryThing and the Early Review Program. I tried to listen to an audio book while I trained for the Just ‘Cause walk but it skipped so bad I gave up and started watching Natalie videos instead.

April was National Poetry Month so I tackled the following poems:

  • “House of Blue Light” by David Kirby
  • “Ithaca” by Constantine Cavafy
  • “Happiness” by Jane Kenyon
  • “America To Me” by Henry Van Dyke
  • “Golden Retrievals” by Mark Doty
  • “Tortures” by Wislawa Szymborska
  • “Unexplorer” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • “True Love” by Wislawa Szymborska

April ’12 is…

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April is and will always be my WhatTheFukc month. It’s the last full month of Just ‘Cause training. It’s the month when I think I’m never walking enough despite hours on the treadmill. It’s the last full month of the semester at school. It’s the month when the animals students are doing stupid sh!t like hanging from water pipes and causing a major flood in their dorm. I kid you not. It’s the last truly cold month of the year. At least one can hope. It’s the last month I feel comfortable wearing knee high boots. For reading it’s an even more discombobulated month. April is National Poetry month so between the novels I’ll be reading poetry. It’s like a car stalling. I can’t explain it.

Anyway…here’s what I PLAN to read for the month of April. You know as well as I do I probably will stick to only 75% of this…
April is Alcohol Awareness month so I’m reading John Barleycorn by Jack London. April is also food month so I’ll be depressing myself with Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of an All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. April happens to be National Humor month so I’m buzzing through The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. The Civil War started in April so I threw Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier on the list. I need to wrap up a couple of series I started in Janurary so The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and These Happy Golden Yearsby Laura Ingalls Wilder are on the list. Last but not least I finally, finally got an Early Review book from LibraryThing: A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir. Oh. And there’s the random poem in between all that…

What else is April all about? Easter with the in-laws to talk about our upcoming trip to Hawaii. My sister’s birthday. It’s a big one. A jaunt to the theater with a good friend. A Red Sox game. Maybe a little cowbell in Vermont? Not sure.

March ’12 was…

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March 2012 was huge for reading. I think that’s because some of the books took me a day or two to read. March was also the first month of training for Just ‘Cause. Whenever I talk about training to walk it sounds stupid. I mean really, who trains to put one foot in front of the other? I guess when you put those steps all together and come up with a total of sixty miles over the course of three days it all adds up. Anyway, training (such as it is) is going great. For the month of March I averaged six miles a day, every day. But, this blog is not about walking miles or not. It’s about books. Here’s the Lust list for March 2012:

  • A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in honor of African Writers month
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston in honor of Zora
  • Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder in honor of keeping on with the series
  • Up Country by Maxine Kumin (read in one afternoon) in honor of March being poetry month (April is the official one)
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte in honor of Literature month
  • Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose in honor of March having a “Hug a G.I.” day
  • The Fixer by Bernard Malamud in honor of Malamud passing in March
  • Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien in honor of keeping on with the Lord of the Rings series. I will admit I didn’t finish this.
  • The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler in honor of crime month
  • My Antonia by Willa Cather in honor of another classic (this was, by far, my favorite read of the month)
  • Lawless Roads by Graham Green in honor of April being the best time to go to Mexico (obviously I jumped ahead a little)

I started an audio book (as is my tradition with trying to train and read at the same time) but the book I chose, Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman was so scratched I couldn’t get beyond disc one. Bummer. Also, for the third time in a row I didn’t receive the Early Review book I was awarded from LibraryThing. So I didn’t end up reading anything for LibraryThing. I was awarded a fourth book…we’ll see if it actually shows up.

So. There it is. The big list of books. Aside from Band of Brothers and Two Towers every other book was really short and easy to buzz through. I doubt April will be so kind.

February ’12 was…

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Considering the tumultuous way 2012 started February was a bit gentler and definitely easier to get through. I think celebrating a birthday definitely helped. It’s always good to have something to celebrate!
Here are the books read (or listened to) in February:

  • Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough ~ in honor of President’s Day (even though this had very little to do with Roosevelt being president of anything). This was an audio book and a real pleasure to listen to.
  • Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban ~ in honor of Hoban’s birth month. This was an oversized kids book!
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham ~ in honor of February being Scholastic Journalism month and this was all about Graham being involved with The Washington Post for nearly 60 years. This was a book left over from the Public Access to Library Services program.
  • Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien ~ a continuation of the series that I started in January. I have two more books that I will read through March and April (Two Towers and Return of the King).
  • A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark ~ Another audio book that was extremely funny.
  • Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers ~ in honor of the day in February (the 23rd) that the American flag was raised on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan.
  • Blues Dancing by Diane Kenney-Whetstone ~ in honor of Black History month AND Valentine’s Day. Yes, it was chick lit, but yes, it was also very good.

For the fun of it I read Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl ~ a gift from my sister.

I also did a little housekeeping and realized I never reviewed The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’m not sure how that happened, but it happened. So, while I didn’t read it this month I am including it in the list.

Signed, Sealed, Committed

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I celebrated another birthday recently. Nothing outrageous, nothing wild. It was pretty quiet except for the discovery that I am committed to be crazy. Hook. Line. Sinker. I am caught up in a colossal challenge I can’t (won’t?) escape. to explain:

In 2006 someone gave me Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust (better known as simply ‘BL’ in my world). Nothing more than a compilation of recommended reading for “every mood” as Pearl put it. When I first flipped through it I thought, “how quaint.” After some serious page turning I thought, “what a great idea to catalog all these books in such this way!” Funny how first impressions are so innocent. Hindsight definitely reveals a stranger, more elusive obsession in the making. I really don’t know how it all started. I don’t know what made me decide to read every single book indexed in Book Lust. All I do know is that after I was given More Book Lust (MBL) soon after that sealed the deal. Somehow that second book committed me to the challenge. I found myself promising to read EVERY book indexed in Book Lust AND More Book Lust. I wasn’t looking for a fight; no throw down. I didn’t challenge anyone to join me. This was going to be a battle fought by me, myself and moi. I remember meeting Nancy Pearl at a convention. After she signed my books I told her about my insane challenge. She seemed excited when she asked, “are you the one with the website?” but was definitely deflated when I said no, I wasn’t. To be fair, at the time I knew there was at least one other person with the same such project. She had a website and was soliciting book buyers to help her with her reading. I wasn’t that person. As a librarian I could do no such thing. Circulation is at the core of library success.

Anyway, fast forward to Happy Birthday to me. I’m opening a package from my sister. Sitting in my truck with the engine running because I just couldn’t wait. Despite being in my own driveway. I had to laugh when my own eagerness revealed Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl. Here we go again. I knew myself all too well. The only question was how long would it take before I would decide to add all the titles of BLTG to my challenge? Not long. Not long at all. In fact, I hadn’t read a single word of BLTG before I was formulating a new plan. Adjustments would have to be made. Between BL and MBL I had amassed over 4,000 titles to read. At first glance I estimated BLTG would add another 2,000 unique titles…give or take.

And so it begins. I have a feeling LunaSea will be busy.

February ’12 is…

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I feel like I should be singing that diet song that Jennifer Hudson sings – you know the one about it being a new day, a new dawn or a new whatever? Every February I see a chance to refresh, renew, in other words start the fukc over. Think New Years resolutions only a month late. But. But! But, I have my reasons. I was born in the month of February so to me, this month IS my new year. I shouldn’t be here so every year that I am is like starting over. But, enough about all that. Here are the books:

  • Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban in honor of Hoban’s birth month. I plan to read this on a smoke break. LOL
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham in honor of February being Journalism month.
  • Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in honor of February being a big month for history.
  • Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien to continue the Lord of the Rings series that I started with The Hobbit last month.

I did get notification that I got an Early Review book from LibraryThing. That’s cool. What’s even cooler is that it’s a book about the Coast Guard. Having just come from an very, very classy veteran’s (air force) funeral for my uncle I am interested to explore the history of my father’s military branch.

Edited to make a correction: I misspelled Mrs. Graham’s first name as Katherine. My apologies.

Six Years

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I have to stop for a moment and catch my literary breath. For the past six years I have been reading at a break-neck speed. Between Early Reviews for LibraryThing (started in 2007), gifts and recommendations from friends and The BL Challenge I have been reading a lot. Tons. Here’s the thing. I never stop at the end of the each year to really review the progress. People ask me where I am at with “The List” and I can easily say how many Book Lust books I have read for the month but. but! But, that’s only half the story (or a third of it if you want to get down to brass tacks.)

So, it might seem crazy, but here is six years in review:

October- December 2006 – I read 19 books total. 12 for the Book Lust Challenge and 7 “for fun.” To be fair, I started really reading in late October. Interestingly enough, my first BL book was Last River by Todd Balf, reviewed on November 15th. Favorite book? Hands down, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

2007 – I read 106 books total. Two yoga books for fun, six for the Early Review program in conjunction with LibraryThing, and 98 for the Book Lust Challenge. Favorite book? Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock. I will always love this book.

2008 – 100 books total. Again, two for fun, fifteen for the Early Review program, and 83 for Book Lust. Favorite Book? Without a doubt, The Translator by Daoud Hari. His words resonate with me to this day. Read it! Read it!

2009 – 123 books total. Four for fun (gifts mostly), 11 for Early Review, and 108 for Book Lust. Favorite? And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. Astonishing.

2010 – 104 total. Again, four for fun, 14 for Early Review, and only 86 for Book Lust. Favorite has to be Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper.

2011 – 111 total. Two for fun, 11 for Early Review, and 98 for Book Lust. Favorite? It was a tie between The Long Run by Matthew Long (I am still recommending it to people, anyone who will listen) and Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream (which I will be recommended to everyone who will listen as soon as it is published in March 2012).

The grand totals for everything: 485 challenge books, 57 ER books, and 21 fun. 563 in all.

January ’12 is…

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Happy freakin’ New Year!

I am making the resolution to clean up the blogs from 2011. In reviewing everything I read through the year I am noticing some that didn’t get tagged properly, some that weren’t put into the right categories and, horror upon horrors, one that didn’t even get published! WTF?! By all counts I *think* I read 65 fiction titles, 25 nonfiction titles, 12 Early Review/Librarything books, 2 for-fun books and 9 poems. This is, of course, cheating because I included the “attempts” as finished. As promised, I did get at least 50 pages into each failed read.

So, what about 2012? I am still off the reading schedule but have come up with a temporary plan. Kind of like when the plane breaks down and you realize you have to drive to your destination. Think “Trains, Planes & Automobiles.” You need a new map. No, wait. That line was from “Tommy Boy.” Wrong movie. Anyway. So, here is the plan of attack for January 2012:

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or There and Back Again and finish The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. That’s it. Not a crazy ambitious reading list for such a long month, but I’m taking one road at a time and not mapping out the entire journey like I usually do. This is a different year so I’m looking forward to reading a little differently as well.

Happy New Year!

December ’11 was…

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When it comes to the reading December started out with a mistake. Actually, a double mistake or a mistake I made twice but differently each time. Confused? Last year I mistakenly read Ward Just because I thought his birthday was in January. Where I got this from I’ll never know. Then this year I read Ward Just because I thought his birthday was in December. What is wrong with me? Someone just informed me Just’s birthday is in September. Oh. (I say as the light bulb comes on.) Needless to say, I moved the rest of Ward Just’s books to the September list.

The rest of the December reading was pretty much on par for what I planned to read:
New Jersey became a state in December so I read something by New Jersey born author Philip Roth. Portnoy’s Complaint by Roth took place in New Jersey as well.
Winter is the best time to travel to the south (presumably to get out of the cold) so I read A Good Man is Hard to Find by Southern author Flannery O’Connor in honor of December being one of the best months to go to Atlanta, Georgia (where a lot of O’Connor’s short stories take place).
What else? Oh yeah, I finished Madame Bovary in honor of Gustave Flaubert’s birthday being in December.
The Supreme Court appointed its first chief justice in December (John Jay) so I struggled through The People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons, Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis, and the Reader by Bernard Schlink.

December ended up being a good month for Early Review books from LibraryThing as well (even though I never got the book about the New England Patriots I had been so looking forward to 😦 ). I received two books within the first week of the month, Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feetby Heather Poole and Solomon’s Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson. I was able to breeze through Poole’s book, Cruising Attitude, within the first week of December. Solomon’s Oak took longer because I didn’t even start it until the 15th. I received a third Early Review book right before leaving for Christmas break. Perfect timing. I was able to read it in two sittings, it was that good! It was definitely my favorite ER/LT read of the month.

As a result of going to my sister’s for the holiday I have started a sister-recommended,non-challenge, non-review book, The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. I’m only 122 pages in, but so far it’s really good!

October ’11 was…

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What do you get when you add a vacation to two road trips and a freak snow storm in which I lose electricity for two days? Answer – a boat load of books read in one month; so many books that I haven’t been able to review them all.

In the first week of October I went home. As past posts can tell you I like nothing more than reading on an island, especially one on the tail end of a hurricane. There is something so book-worthy about a rain soaked afternoon or two by the raging ocean…
On Monhegan I was able to read:

  • Anil’s Ghost by Michael Onjaatje (e-book),
  • Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (stolen from my childhood bookcase),
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (stolen from my sister’s childhood bookcase)
  • Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (another e-book) and part of
  • The Stand by Stephen King

On a road trip to New York (to see Natalie Merchant ~ more on that on the Other Side) I was able to finish

  • The Stand by Stephen King and
  • Spy Trap by Edward Packard and
  • Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

I started reading Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann when I forgot Immortality by Milan Kundera at work. I finished both those books and Last to Die by James Grippando during the freak snow storm/power outage (and to think people wanted me to come out with them because they had cable!!). As long as I candles and blankets I was in heaven.
But, probably the hardest book to get through was Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (another e-book). I started Altered Carbon the first week of October and slogged through it until October 27th. Talk about a complicated story! I am struggling with the review because the plot was so intense.

So, there it is. Nearly a dozen books for the month of October. True, four of those books were for kids (Phantom Tollbooth, Johnny Tremain, Spy Trap and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) but Altered Carbon, Last To Die and Buddenbrooks were “adult” enough to offset the kiddie stuff.

What’s in store for November? Well, considering I have no trips to Monhegan (or anywhere for that matter), Thanksgiving is this month, and we have a power back, I have no idea. 🙂

September ’11 is…

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September 2011 will be a mess. I guarantee it.  A complete and utter debacle. For starters, the data migration I blathered about back in June didn’t happen on schedule. In fact, it hasn’t happened at all. Fingers crossed, though. It is set for October. But! But. but, that just means I continue to be without borrowing capabilities because I still to refuse to get a public library card. At least I can admit that it’s because I’m lazy. I don’t feel like driving to the public branch when many ( I need to stress many, many) of the books on my challenge list are either in my own workplace library OR sitting on my shelves at home. I don’t need to reach outside of my resources to find a read. But what this does mean (in terms of planning a list of books to read each month) is that it hasn’t been easy. I let my state of mind dictate what comes next or not. It’s chaotic and more than a little crappy. If I don’t feel like reading The Trial I won’t. It’s as simple as that.

So to spend a long time explaining a very simple thing, I don’t have an expected read list for September 2011. There. I said it. I know this much is true: I want to read something nonfiction since I neglected the didactic last month. I do know that I want to reread The World According to Garp by John Irving. I plan to Let Go of some titles I have been meaning to read; to just admit I don’t want to read them at all (The Compleat Angler being one of them). I have been selected to receive another Early Review book from LibraryThing. If it arrives in September I’ll add it to the list. I’m kind of excited because it’s about football. It would be great to read it in honor of the NFL’s 2011 season opening, but we’ll have to wait and see…

What else can I tell you about September? Hurricane season. Start of the Fall Semester for academics. Nights getting cooler. September is my suspicious month. I’m leery of perfect blue skies. I don’t trust the beauty of the day to not turn into something ugly. Fall means dying – this close to death. It means taking dares with yes and losing. The silver lining (as I must find one) is that September is also a chance to remember falling in love among the falling leaves. A chance to celebrate that love, if for only one day.

August ’11 was…

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Why is it that when the days and long and the weather is nice we gravitate towards “chick lit” and “beach reads” and other torpor-inducing dribble? I’m being harsh. Not to the authors but to myself. It seems like this summer had me submerged in silly. See for yourself.  These are the books I had within my reach. First, what I predicted I would read:

  • Daughters of Fortune by Isabel Allende. Allende’s birth month is in August so reading this made sense. Read in three days.
  • While I was Out by Sue Miller. Something I picked up while I was on the island. Read in two days.
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Got extremely bored with this.
  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Read in one day and scared the bejeezus out of me.
  • Dive From Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer. I’m still reeling from this one. Only because in it I recognized a relationship I wrecked. Hard to read about yourself sometimes. It got to me – so much so that I plan a “confessional” blog about it on the other site. Just need to drum up the courage to write it…

Now for the books I didn’t plan to read yet picked up along the way:

  • Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan. Read in a few days. This was decent. I just wish it wasn’t all about finding a fine man and getting laid…
  • Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. I’m thrilled this was on the Challenge list simple because it made me go back to Natalie’s version of “Land of Nod” and really listen to it. Beautiful.
  • The Moffats by Eleanor Estes. I read this one during Hurricane Irene -only a few hours. I needed something simple to keep me company while I filled water bottles and worried about the ginormous maple outside my picture window.
  • Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Probably my least favorite book of the bunch simply because I couldn’t understand the morality of the heroine of the story. The scene where Becky lies on her resume about speaking Finnish made me cringe. I was embarrassed for her.

I was able to snag one book for LibraryThing’s Early Review program: Call Me When You Land by Michael Schiavone. This had the potential to be something special. I really liked the storyline. It was the basic character development that had me reaching for more.

So. That was August. Not really impressive. No nonfiction. Nothing to set the house on fire. Maybe September will see something special.

August ’11 is…

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I know that I will spending my first week of August out to sea. Such an enjoyable place for enjoying books! I know that August is another chance at music – Miss Rebecca Correia and a little band called 10,000 Maniacs. What else do I know about August? Not much. I know I am taking two books with me:

  • Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. If I want to still “honor” something I could say I’m reading this in honor of August being National Ocean month. Allende’s lead character takes a boat from Chile to America in search of her gold rush crazed lover.
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ~ bringing this for the sake of something else in the bag.

As for anything else I haven’t the slightest idea. I am still trying to read the books within my reach so the whole “read-this-book-to-honor-this-thing” isn’t really happening. I have been enjoying this seat of my pants kind of selection. Other books I hope to get to:

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  • While I Was Out by Sue Miller
  • The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer

I will have another Early Review book soon but until it actually arrives it’s best not to mention it.

July ’11 is…

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July 2011 promises to be one crazy month. See, I’m already a week late posting this because I have been off hiking some cliffs in Maine. Here’s what’s been oging on so far:
Batman entered my life on the first day of July. I’m sure I’ll never look at the open road the same way again. I’ve been on vacation for the first week of July – again, a crazy time. Said that already. Been sleeping in five different places in one week. There was one wedding so far. Later in the month there will be at least three concerts (Further, Natalie Merchant & Rebecca Correia), Kisa’s birthday, a burial, and who knows what else will happen! Because things are so scattered I’ve decided to not plan out July’s reading list. I really didn’t have time to plan ahead, to be totally honest. I know that I have packed Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe to bring on vacation. I’ll be reading it in honor of Burton Bennett, but that’s all I’ve planned for now…More later!

This is short and sweet, but c’est la vie!