I have a generous employer that gives me both Thanksgiving Day and the day after Thanksgiving as paid holidays. The two holiday days combined with two weekend days gives me four days off in a row. Who says I am bad at math? So of course there will be extra reading time since Bookman and I go nowhere for Thanksgiving — it’s just the two of us and our vegan enchiladas and pumpkin pie. I plan on parking my fanny in my reading “nest” and snuggling under a quilt with the cats piled on top of me.
 
Reading material is important, there must be a lot of it because extra time! It doesn’t matter one bit that I already have plenty to read for four days, I need more! In fact, I seem to be not as good at math as I thought because the number of books I suddenly find piled up on my reading table indicates that I have four weeks instead of four days. Library holds are rolling in like the waves at Waimea.

My library offers a “pause” on holds but I am very bad at paying attention and before it even occurs to me to pause a request it shows up as in transit and then it is too late. What’s a girl to do? I must read fast and prioritize by due dates and if something doesn’t immediately strike me as interesting than back to the library it goes, I have no time for wishy-washy malarkey (I’m looking at you Invisible Library – 30 pages of going nowhere and back it went).
 
In unprioritized order, here are the books I currently have out from the public library:

  • Finding My Elegy by Ursula LeGuin. This is a poetry collection. Did you know she wrote poetry? I didn’t. And it is nature poetry and very good!
  • Ody-C by Matt Fraction. The Odyssey in space! Except Odysseus is a woman and it’s all kind of weird and I haven’t decided whether or not I like it yet.
  • I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong. This is fascinating stuff about all of the bacteria that live in our bodies and the things they do. We have so much to learn about our symbiotic friends!
  • Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith. Short stories, but not about libraries, at least not yet, interspersed with nonfiction stories about libraries. It’s odd, but not bad.
  • The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride. I loved her book A Girl is a Half-formed Thing last year. It was one of my favorites and absolutely crushing. I have no idea what this new book is about but I am so very excited to read it.
  • The Secret Loves of Geek Girls. A nonfiction comic anthology about geek girls featuring the likes of Margaret Atwood, Mariko Tamaki and Noelle Stevenson. Squee!

There are two additional books in transit:

  • Bestiary by Donika Kelly. Poems about animals. It is a debut collection getting lots of buzz and was longlisted for the National Book Award.
  • Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. Science memoir by a geek girl. I expect to lurv this one

 
And these are the books I have out from the university library:

  • Samarkand by Amin Maalouf. Fiction about Omar Khayyam
  • The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam. Poetry deliciousness
  • The Story of a New Name by Elen Ferrante. I’m a little way into this and liking it very much. Damn, Ferrante is a good writer!
  • Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson. A civil rights memoir.

 
In addition, I have a Library Journal book for review:

  • The Nemirovsky Question by Susan Rubin Suleiman. About Irene Nemirovsky and the reception of her work before and after her death in a concentration camp. So far quite good.

 
I have no idea if I will be able to finish all of these in a timely manner. I guess I am about to find out!