I had different plans for a post today but I have caught the library cold my coworkers have been passing around and putting together thoughts is not easy. I will save it for another time.

I am not feeling so very poorly; a sniffle now and then, a cough once in awhile, a sore throat. Typical cold and mild symptoms for which I am grateful as my coworkers have had it worse than I do. The worst part of a cold is the general feeling of tired run-downness that makes it hard to muster energy to do much of anything. As a result I have spent the largest part of my weekend reading Dave Eggers’ The Circle. It is so good! I just started it on Friday (or was it Thursday night?) and I am about three-quarters of the way through it already. So at least this is the sort of cold that doesn’t prevent reading. I don’t like being under the weather but if I can read it makes it bearable.

Bookman had to work yesterday and when he arrived home last night just in time to make me dinner he says, “I brought you some chicken soup.” Since we are vegan I knew it wasn’t really chicken soup but I thought perhaps he had stopped at the store and picked up a can of vegetable soup or something. Oh no, he did much better than that! He had stopped at the bookstore and brought me home a book! He’s such a sweetie.

The book he brought me is Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Great. It’s just been published and already getting rave reviews from several bloggers I like. Bookman is excited about the book too. He tells me, “now I expect you’ll have a long list of books you want to read by the time you are done with this.” Oh yes, I expect I will. “Before you go off ordering them or borrowing from the library, check our own shelves, we probably have a good percentage of them.” But of course. We both enjoy reading SF/fantasy and while I brought a respectable collection to the marriage, Bookman had even more, which causes me to tease him now and then and say things like, “You know I married you for your books, right?”

Of course I had to take a little break from The Circle to read a few essays in the Walton book. I enjoyed them very much. I have decided I could gobble it down if I let myself, but I am not going to let myself. I am imposing a limit of one or two essays at a time on any given day. That will stretch the book out for a number of delicious weeks. Best chicken soup ever!