Library Haul

Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin. Man, is this author YOUNG! You should see his photo on the back cover. But I made the mistake of picking it up and starting it while I was waiting for the electrician to show up this morning and now I just want to sit and read the whole thing. I can’t – I have too much to do! But I WANT to. And I still might.

Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon, An Atlas of Depression. With the idea of becoming comfortable with your demons.

Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid

Me and Emma – Elizabeth Flock. I forget where this crossed my radar but when I saw it on the New Books shelf, I picked it up.

The Mulberry Empire – Philip Hensher. The Guardian (my new favorite website to check for book reccs) recommended his new one but the Carnegie didn’t have it, and this one is set in Afghanistan, so I picked it up to check out.

I also requested Kindergarten. I can’t remember the author, or even what it’s about, but the people at The Guardian really liked it. Is it any wonder my reading is so scattered? I could spend an afternoon tooling around The Guardian and come away with a six-page list of books I want to read. Dangerous stuff.

I also bought – hey, they were 50 cents a piece! – Into the Wild, so I now own every Jon Krakauer; The Human Stain, Philip Roth; Ice Bound, about the doctor who had to treat her own breast cancer while trapped in an South Pole research station; A Bear Called Paddington, for Simon. My little reading guy. He has recently discovered that AA Milne wrote other stuff than just the Winnie the Pooh books, so I have been required to read over and over Bad King John and The King’s Breakfast (“I just want a bit of butter for the Royal piece of bread!”) and other entertaining poems. Then he goes to bed and pushes up the shade and reads to himself until either his father or I come in and tell him he is going to ruin his eyes and he needs to go to sleep.