And I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough...

Books I bought last night:
Tunneling, by Beth Bosworth: It sounds like a cross between Time Traveler’s wife and The Eyre Affair, both books I love. So for 4 bucks it was worth a shot.
And some book whose title I forget, by some woman whose name I forget, that sounded like a Rosamunde Pilcher cozy-English-comfort book, that began with the protagonist in the bathtub discussing how stressed out visiting her mum makes her, and how she wishes she could stay unrumpled and crisp and ironed, because her mum is sure to note when she’s not. How could I resist?

I have been rereading Robertson Davies’ brilliant Cornish Trilogy but as the completion of this, my third reread of this particular Davies’ work, could take months, I have been peppering other books into the mix. I started Christine Rosen’s My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood last night and didn’t want to stop reading to sleep. I feel like I lived this girl’s life (we look to be about the same age); and here I thought the South Jersey fundamentalist crazies had the market cornered on things like sword drill, Bible cozies, and Rapture paranoia. I will need to own this one. And it will certainly save me the trouble of writing my own childhood memoirs.

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Literary snippets:

I have to read Sarah Dunant’s new book, In the Company of the Courtesan, because her first novel, The Birth of Venus was very enjoyable.

OK, OK, OK, I’ll read The Thin Place already!

Why didn’t I think of this? The Year of Yes, by Maria Dahvana Headley chronicles her year of going out with ANYONE who asked her. Sounds like my entire dating life. But then maybe I was just a slut.

Who's That Noshin' on my Laig?
Peter Benchley
1940-2006

David Mitchell has a new book coming out and I am so happy! I LOVED Cloud Atlas and can’t wait to read Black Swan Green.

Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead is not, as I first supposed, a tribute to Jerry Garcia et al. I saw it in B&N last night, and hey, death and disaster AND the Antarctic – where do I sign up?

Dudes, I have never been a big Melville fan and I am saying now with the critics – the guy made it all up! Every last bit of it! Does this come as any surprise? Not to James Frey…but honestly, Herman, if you’re going to go to the trouble of making stuff up, couldn’t you at least make it INTERESTING?

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Snippets:

More in the mother-daughter communication debacle vein.

Jake Ryan versus Lloyd Dobler? Is there any contest?

I’m wearing Max Factor 2000 Calorie mascara that a friend gave me as a sort of thank-you present for looking up articles about premature burial and other dead-people-related things for her. What? Do you think librarians sit around drinking tea and discussing Nancy Mitford all day long? And my eyes hurt. I know you hate the pink tube, Leslie, but I have to go back to it, though I must say, my lashes LOOK killer.

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I took a lot of pictures trying to get just the right close-up for Show-and-Tell; they’re too cute/cool (or maybe they’re dorky, but I don’t want to know) not to share. Here ya go.

I call this one "The Blair Witch Baby"





This one is just for Blackbird.

Milk-drunk love

These are all the munchable parts...