I expected to spend most of my weekend working on school and doing the reading for the coming week, but after I turned in my assignments for last week yesterday, the professor had not posted the reading for the coming week yet. As of the moment he still hasn’t. It’s a little frustrating since I have time on the weekends to be able to focus and really dig in and read and learn. So without the new reading assignment, what’s a girl to do (besides check every few hours to see if anything has been posted)? Why read whatever she wants!

I’ve had the pleasure of finishing Novel on Yellow Paper. I’ve finished early since the Slaves discussion isn’t until next week. Finishing early means I am not stressed out about being done in time, but it also means I have an entire week to forget. But then again, I have a week to digest, mull it over, re-read parts of it and try to figure out what this maddeningly charming book is all about.

I’ve continued reading the Edith Wharton biography. I’ll be reading that for a few more weeks at least. I read a chapter on Wharton’s and Henry James’s friendship. They seemed to alternate between being drawn to and repelled by each other. I think I’ll probably post some specifics sometime during the week since theirs is such a famous friendship.

My travel book at the moment is The Gates by John Connolly. Oh this is a hoot of a book. Yesterday afternoon I was in the mood for fiction but didn’t want to start anything new so got to read this one for an uninterrupted glorious hour. At which point my Bookman, who has already read the book, arrived home from work and exhorted me to stop reading it. “You must slow down,” he said, “you are reading it too fast. Savor it! Savor it!” I was at a really good bit and for a brief moment felt the urge to tell my beloved to F – off and go lock myself in the bathroom so I could keep reading in peace. But I resisted the urge and managed to tear myself away from the book. In doing so I didn’t feel like there was any savoring going on, it was more like when I was a kid and it was summer and I’d been outside running around the neighborhood with my sister and our friends, riding our bicycles and playing games and it’s slowly growing dark but I’m ignoring that fact because I’m having so much fun and then, breaking into the beauty of a summer’s evening is my mom’s voice calling, “Girls! Time to come in!”

Today I did start to read a new book. This afternoon I began reading Blankets by Craig Thompson. The book calls itself an illustrated novel, which I suppose is an attempt to separate it out from the comic book qualities that so often reside in the term “graphic novel.” I am almost halfway through, and oh, it is so good! The art is marvelous and the story is beautiful.

And of course, I am still reading Reading in Bed. This one I am limiting myself to reading only at night before bed. Seems only appropriate given the title, right?

Since I suspect most of my reading during the week is going to end up being school related, I had better go now and see how much more of all these good books I can squeeze in to the rest of the day!