Welcome September! Autumn is coming and while afternoons still feel summery, mornings are cool and dewy, ducks and geese are flocking and flying away, and the population of robins has greatly diminished. Squirrels are running around eating everything and coming up to my backdoor and looking in hoping for handouts. Trees are getting into the spirit too and beginning to blush around the edges. School is back in session as well. This week it seems all of my summer busyness caught up to me and I have been barely able to put two words together. I even almost fell asleep while reading on the metro train during my homeward bound commute! It’s a good thing I have a three-day holiday weekend ahead during which I can regroup and recharge.
In the meantime, I am happy to say my reading pile is once again leveling off and I am feeling in control. I only have a couple books out from the library and none of them need to be rushed through. I looked at the books on my reading table yesterday and actually thought, hey I might pick one up to read this weekend. Wouldn’t that be something!
But then a strange thing happened. While I was excited at the prospect of reading a book from my table that has been sitting there for well over a year, I had a little surge of panic that I had “nothing” to read, that I was running out of books! It was the craziest thing. This feeling was then quickly followed by an urge to make lots of library book requests. I managed to refrain because both my rational and emotional centers were so gobsmacked that all systems were frozen and had to be rebooted. Everything is back online and running smoothly now but the emotional and rational data analysts are still trying to figure out what exactly happened. I am waiting for their reports.
The Twin Cities Book Festival has announced their author lineup and there are several I would love to see. It is on October 15th, however, and it kept niggling at me that I had something going on that day but for the life of me I could not remember. Finally I broke down and checked my calendar and yup, I have a new tattoo scheduled for that morning. The festival starts at 10 my tattoo starts at 9. What do you think the chances are that everyone I want to see will be scheduled for the nebulous time of “after my tattoo”? No, I don’t believe myself to be that lucky. And after an hour or two of being tattooed will I really be in the mood to go anyway? Last year I was at NerdCon Stories. Next year I have to be sure to not schedule anything on Saturday in mid-October so I can be sure to go.
In spite of my panic over not having anything to read, I have plenty to read including a book I bought at the festival two years ago. Even the books I have in progress will keep me busy for a little while. I am past the halfway mark of In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi. I am also well into the second half of The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. I just finished volume 4 of Ms. Marvel and started volume 2 of The Unwritten. I have Elena Ferrante’s The Story of a New Name ready to go. I am also still practicing the art of slow reading on The Art of Slow Writing. And, even though I haven’t mentioned it in what seems like forever, I am still reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. In a choice of reading material I am wealthy beyond belief.
The weather on Saturday is forecast to be gorgeous. Sunday and Monday are being called “unsettled” which means some lovely stretches punctuated by rain and thunder. My book pile is ready for those rainy patches!
Let’s face it. For readers having “plenty to read” usually means that life is good regardless of what else may be going on at the time.
I don’t remember you mentioning the Ferrante books before. Do you plan to read all four of them? I found myself intrigued by the mysterious Ferrante and spent a good bit of time reading the four books very close together. That made them seem like one huge novel of, I suppose, something not too far from 2,000 pages. I enjoyed them much more than I dreamed I would when I first saw those covers.
I read the Faludi biography of her father earlier this year and that one still haunts me when I least expect it. The only problem I had with the book, really, was that I could not help picturing her father as the actor who plays a transitioning father on that Amazon Prime series, Transparent. While that didn’t keep me from enjoying the book, I think it tainted my understanding of her father. Hard as I tried to flush the actor’s image from my mind, I never came close to succeeding.
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Sam, you’ve got that right! I read the first Ferrante book in July I think it was and I have been waiting my turn at the library for number two. I liked the first one quite a lot and am looking forward to where the story goes.
Interesting about the Faludi book and Transparent. I have not seen it though I have heard a lot about it. I am currently getting a lot background on her father’s life during WWII. Really interesting. There is so much to try and parse out about her father’s past and present.
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Plenty to read is a good thing, to be sure, especially as Summer begrudgingly gives way to Autumn. I am so thankful for the cool nights and mornings. It is a glimpse of how things will eventually be all day, and I cannot wait.
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Carl, yes indeed! And there is RIP too which I failed to mention and have been greatly looking forward to! 🙂 I am not looking forward to frigid cold but I am looking forward to crisp and cool!
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By the time it gets that cold, I’ll be ready for it, but no, I’m only ready right now for the cool, crisp temps of Autumn. I was actually chilly driving to work with my windows down and only short sleeves on…so needless to say, I was thrilled.
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I love that little chilly in morning feeling too! 🙂
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I completely understand the panic attack. I have like 6 odd books, I am mid way and day before, when planning Septermber reading, I realized I had NOTHING to read!! But I too held off and have not ordered any new books! Phew!! I think we need help! Good luck with reading through the 3 day weekend! These offs are such a relief to us readers…they let us do what we were born to do – READ!
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Yes, that panicky feeling of not having anything to read when, objectively, you have loads is a rather unsettling one. Excellently, the reading of Pilgrim At Tinker Creek seems an example of sloooowww reading!
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Ian, it is very unsettling and completely bonkers on an objective level. Heh, Tinker Creek is an example of reading at a snail’s pace — reading about nature at the pace of nature?
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cirtnecce, haha, glad I am not the only one! We might need help but do we really want it? Somehow I don’t think so.
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Being book addicts, it’s hard to not make our piles too high, but we do. Life gets in the way of reading doesn’t it.
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Page, life definitely gets in the way of reading! What’s up with that? 😉
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I feel that way about having “nothing to read” when I get down to the stuff I’ve bypassed, for whatever reason, in the past.
It’s my busiest time of the year, no labor day off at my college, so I don’t have to worry about whether I have enough to read, anyway. I’m enjoying The Portable Veblen, which I found at a bookstore in Chapel Hill and bought on your recommendation, in the few minutes I have before I go to sleep each night.
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Jeanne, yeah, when there is nothing “new” hanging about it feels so OMG, but there are so many books on my shevles that were new once and have been waiting for so long. I have to find a way of making them seem new again, then maybe I will be more likely to get to them! Sorry you don’t get a long weekend. But I am glad you are enjoying Portable Veblen!
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It’s so nice to be able to borrow books from the library, but I also find it stressful. I have so many books of my own to read and having books from the library makes me feel I have an obligation to read those first. At the moment, I have no books out from the library and none on hold. I’m feeling light and free to read anything I want!
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Joan, heh, yeah library books can be stressful especially if there is a holds queue and it’s a long book and you only get three weeks with it. Free to read anything you want? What will you do? 🙂
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I have a few books to finish: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard, Eat & Run by Scott Jurek (the vegan ultrarunner), and I’m still listening to and reading Moby Dick. But I get to choose a new mystery to read and will be able to pick a new novel as soon as I finish The Light Years. What would we do without books?
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Oh, is Eat & Run straight up memoir or does he talk about sport nutrition as a vegan at all? Moby Dick is great. I hope you are enjoying it (though those whale “processing” chapters turn my stomach)
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“Autumn is coming,” she says. I grumble jealously — we’re projected at a high of 92 today, and I’m feeling grateful that it’s not hotter. Which I guess is sort of the same thing as autumn coming, except that it is not nearly as good and makes me want to punch the sun. Dear autumn, please come home, all is forgiven, love Jenny.
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Jenny, oh I am sorry. It reminds me of growing up in southern California where the seasons are hot and not as hot. We are in the 70s which is such a perfect temperature range and then we cool off into the low 60s/upper 50s and night. Maybe it is time for you to take a vacation up north? 🙂
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I really liked The Art of Slow Writing. And, like you, I took my time with it. (With doesn’t happen often with books around here, really.) It sounds like a pretty nice long weekend all the way around. Enjoy!
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buriedinprint, it’s a pretty good book, though I am starting to feel like I am reading it a bit too slowly and losing momentum!
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Trees beginning to blush around the edges, what I lovely way to describe what is happening here too.
I don’t have a reading table but a reading shelf where I put all books I want to read, from my own collection as well as library books. When there has been little ‘movement’ among them for a while they sort of blend into the background and do not count as books to be read anymore. That’s a weird feeling and produces the same urge as you describe: the need to immediately request books from the library or to go over my wishlist and purchase a pile. Strange.. .yet good to know I’m not alone in this:)
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Thanks Cath! You too? It seems to be a common reader sort of thing and I had no idea 🙂
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I hope your long weekend is an excellent one! Our office closed at 1 pm today (yay!) and I went to an outdoor climbing gym and then walked home with an iced latte, enjoying the gorgeous sunny weather. Tomorrow is forecast to be OK here, but then Sunday and Monday are very much up in the air, thanks to Tropical Storm Hermine. My boyfriend is away at Burning Man, so it’s very quiet at home for me right now – but at least I have a stack of library books to keep me company…
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Heather, thanks! I hope you had a wonderful weekend as well! It sounds like you took great advantage of your early afternoon off! I hope Hermine didn’t mess thing sup too much for you.
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I am both sad that summer is almost over and I am looking forward to the fall.
Unfortunately my reading list will never level off 🙂
I wish that we had more book festivals in my neck of the wood. I hope that you get a chance to go and see the authors that you would like to.
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Brian Joseph, this time of year brings out a bit on conflicted feeling doesn’t it? As much as I was the cool of fall and all that it brings, I am not quite ready for summer to be over yet! This is the only book festival we have here. Is it bad of me to wish it were bigger than one day and had more going on? 🙂
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My books are toppling over! I’ve not read much of what I had lined up to read….always more to read, to write, and life to live 😉 Bravo on your success!
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bikurgurl, it is not easy to juggle it all!
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Nope — much easier to walk around the stack on the floor 😉
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I hope you guys have had a great Labor Day weekend. Don’t you just love book festivals? I do hope you are able to fit in some author readings after your tattoo! 🙂
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Iliana, thanks! I hope you had a wonderful weekend yourself! Our festival is only one day but it is generally a good day and getting more crowded by the year. I am hoping that one day it might be turned into a whole weekend 🙂
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That would be unlucky if all the authors you want to see are scheduled the same day as your tattoo, but yes, if you’re there for a couple of hours that might be too much to then continue on the festival.
I know the ‘I have nothing to read’ feeling that’s akin to the ‘I have nothing to wear’ feeling, but not your thought that day. Maybe it was because you’ve been reading a good amount and you’re worried – irrationally, true – that your pile is getting too small? I like Sam’s thought at the top, that plenty to read means life’s good. You only really get that thought when you’re in a good reading phase, after all.
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Charlie, heh, definitely irrationally worried my pile is getting “too small” or at least visibly smaller. Yup, I agree, plenty to read does mean life is good, can’t complain about that!
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