Whoops

I remember that summers used to be lazy. I used to laze around and read all the time... or play video games. Somehow summers have become almost as busy as the school year. It's crazy. I have been reading but not nearly at the rate that I need to be to keep up with goals. This isn't surprising, but that I'm having a hard time with the daily journals is a little mind boggling to me.

Ryan and I finally pulled all of our books out of boxes and organized them on shelves (we had to buy four extra bookcases to do it). It took about a week of unpack, sorting, building, and shelving but it's mostly done now.  It's incredible the number of books we've accumulated and distressing that over half of them are unread. It's a crazy project for some day to get through all of them; there are at least 1,000 books down there.

In terms of reading...

I finally finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I actually found the ending much more satisfying than how the mini series turned out. It all wrapped up fairly neatly.

I read Washington Black by Esi Edugyan which was not on the list but fulfilled a category for summer reading. It wasn't what I expected it to be. From reading the back of the book, it looked like an adventure story in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson. There were elements of that in there, but it was more of a historical character drama examining the various attitudes and motivations around slavery in the early 1800's. It seemed particularly critical of the motivations of some segments of the abolitionist movements. Sometimes people do good things for selfish reasons. It's an interesting point. I'm not sure at this point whether I like the book or not, but it has made me thoughtful and that is a good thing.

Finally, I just finished The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John LeCarré. This was a pretty dense and dreary read. Cold War lit just tends to be that way and I guess it makes sense that a spy novel set during the Cold War would be doubly so. It did present a nifty little puzzle to the reader. Information and confirmation was doled out in intervals which keep me reading but it was slow. It was a continual pattern of "what the heck is going on," to "maybe this is happening," and finally "yup, that's what happened." One cycle led to the next all the way to the end where the characters reap the dismal rewards of their labors. So much fun! At least it was short.

On to Steig Larsson....because scandinavians are known for their cheery dispositions...right?