IP and I Owe Ourselves a Relaxing Dinner and New Books Once September Is Over: The Book List
This post will serve as a semi-mega-update, not only of the book list, but of life in general. It has been, to quote someone on the Crown Prince Marie Chantal of Greece message boards, kee-cray-zee lately. My hands are full at work with a few projects and I cannot wait until October 5 rolls around for some relief. The weekends are spent decompressing from the stress of the week, so personal writing really isn’t tops on my list at the moment (which is sad, given how much I have to say about my vacation in August and the books I’ve been reading). I’ve started listening to meditation exercises at night to help me sleep (and sleep I do!) and so that I don’t dream about the annoyances of a certain interface that everyone must use to schedule government travel (it sucks and I vow that I will never be roped into it again if people want me to stay sane and on the ball). When I exercise, I picture a certain group of people who pretend to make decisions but just form sub-sub-committees to supposedly make the decisions—I picture me running over their faces or Arc training my way over their backs. Violent? Yes. Necessary for stress relief? Hell yes.
IP is just as busy as I am—we both spent a huge chunk of the weekend in front of our computers, working. Fun stuff. However, I get paid and earn vacation hours from the extra time I put in; we are going to use that money to get a nice dinner, probably take a vacation in the winter, and buy some books, damnit.
I haven’t even had the time to finish my post about the awesomeness that was the Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm show at the Birchmere on August 31. I started writing it last Saturday and had planned to finish it then; at some point, I wanted to get input from IP so that more funny moments could be included in my list of funny moments, but we never got around to talking about the show in reference to my post. Oh, we hashed it out a bunch of times, chortling in delight at the memories, but I didn’t have pen and paper in hand when we did. Alas! I will post it, but it almost seems a little too late. Le sigh. Rest assured, when we see them again, a post will appear almost instantly (well, the day after, at least). On that note (and I will ask again in my real post): please come back to the DC area soon!
The book list, though, contains a few new entries, and I highly recommend all of them. I wish I could say more, but I read some of them so long ago (it seems) that I can’t really comment at the moment. All I know is that I need more books because I finished all the ones I wanted to read. I am resisting the temptation to go to the BN.com website to buy more books from my wishlist. So . . . damn . . . tempting . . .
Onto the book list.
Finished:
1) Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
2) Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel
3) Helen of Troy by Margaret George
4) Writing Ann Arbor: A Literary Anthology Edited by Laurence Goldstein
5) You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore
6) Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore
7) The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, Version 2.0 by Christopher Moore
8) Radio On: A Listener’s Diary by Sarah Vowell
9) Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion by Barbara J. King
10) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
11) Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
12) One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead
13) College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-Eds, Then and Now by Lynn Peril
14) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
15) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
16) House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (Translated by Magda Bogin)
17) A Woman Unknown: Voices from a Spanish Life by Lucia Graves
18) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Re-read:
1) Vertical Run by Joseph R. Garber
Currently Reading:
1) Lost for Words: Hidden History of Oxford English Dictionary by Lynda Mugglestone
Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Boyfriend, or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):
1) Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro by Zachary M. Schrag
