Attempting to Read

Richard and I took the kids to the library this afternoon.  Given that we were not-entirely-politely tossed out the first and last time I took the kids solo, we opted to tag-team it.  (I'll tell that story later, if anybody's interested.)

I got to wander off by myself for a few minutes and actually look at book titles and read blurbs and everything.  It was kind of cool.  I even picked out a few books, though thinking that I'll be able to scratch out enough time to finish even one is probably silliness.

I'll admit to two of them.

The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger.  The way this particular library shelves their fiction, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly what genre your book is going to fall into.  This one looks like it's going to be a nice combination of historical, romance and personal redemption, without being too much of any one of them.  I don't expect it to be a particularly light read, but I'm looking forward to it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This is probably gong to sound ridiculous, but I had NO IDEA that a movie of this book had been made, much less one starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.  When did that happen?  (Oh, last year, by the looks of it.  I was a little busy.  Obviously missed it.)  I was going to give some sort of blurb, but I suppose everyone's already seen it. ;)

I picked up a third book too, but it's a poorly written piece of garbage to have on hand for car rides.  Also probably the only one of the three I might have time to finish - sad as that is.

After picking out my books, I went to find Richard in the kid's section.  I was shocked...that place had been stripped clean.  Bug has been reading the Magic Treehouse books and the shelf that used to be full of them was entirely empty, as was every other shelf on the aisle.  Aisle after aisle after aisle in the kid's section was empty.  I thought that perhaps they were rearranging or moving the books elsewhere, but it turns out they've all just been checked out.  Almost all of the chapter books, almost all of the easy reader books, almost all of the board books, almost all of the kid's music and movies.  Stripped clean.  Richard was baffled until I pointed out that it's the first week of summer vacation and 115 degrees outside during the day.  Even mid day on a Thursday, the library was packed.

Bug ended up finding a handful of books that he was excited about (a new Charlie & Lola, his first Ramona book and a few that we've never heard of before), so it ended up being a good trip.  We read a whole bunch of little board books to Boo while we were there, but she generally prefers to hear whatever Bug is reading, so left all of those there for whoever might want them.

I'll go online and put holds on some of the books that we couldn't find for Bug today.  He'll be pretty excited by that, I think.

Library, Part I

It's just after 2pm, but we're planning to head off to the library.  Soon.  Assuming that we can get Bug into clothes.  (He's having an "I want to be naked!" day.  With his newly updated cloth diaper stash, he's been enjoying running about in colorful pants and nothing else.)

I've been feeling a little guilty about the reading that I haven't done, but I'm putting those feelings away right now.  I've started on Persuasion, though I've been reading Bug's books more often.  As it should be, I suppose. :)  I've also been reading a few cookbooks of Mom's, and I don't feel that that's wasted time at all.  But the library books and impending due dates are starting to stress me out a little bit, so I'm just going to drop any feelings of failure and take most of them back.  I'm planning to keep Candide and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters for a little longer.

The plan for today is to look into some non-fiction, since fiction is feeling a tiny bit frivolous right now.  A friend turned me onto Friedensreich Hundertwasser, so I thought I'd see if I could find any books on him.  And hopefully something on the Gee's Bend quilts.  (Which is where the other conversation began.)  I was able to see the Gee's Bend exhibit when it went through Houston a few years ago and it was AMAZING.  I didn't have much appreciation for quilting at the time and (although I'm ashamed to admit it) wasn't expecting much.  It completely blew me away.  I could have gone to see them a thousand times and still been awed.

Here's hoping we come back with some awesome stuff!

Book Notes

I finished reading the first of my new library books yesterday.  I started with Adventures of the Artificial Woman, by Thomas Berger and I have to admit that I almost scrapped it.  Which kind of says a lot because I haaaaaate walking away from a book before I've finished it.  Something about time invested and what happens if it gets good/interesting/redeems itself/whatever but I'll never know because I didn't finish it?

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

(I'm not planning to do a big in depth book review or anything here, but I'd kind of like to keep my thoughts somewhat on track.  Spoilers abound.)

I didn't think that I was familiar with Thomas Berger.  But I do believe that I read Arthur Rex some years ago and enjoyed it.  And I'm familiar with Little Big Man.  So I didn't discover a new-to-me-author as I'd initially thought that I had.

Adventures of the Artificial Woman was located in the science fiction section.  So I was ready to suspend a good deal of disbelief.  But the author lost me on page twenty-seven.  I'm not kidding.  Page twenty-seven.  That's really early in a novel that runs just shy of two hundred pages.

The subject matter of the novel is easily summed up by the very first sentence.  "Never having found a real woman with whom he could sustain more than temporary connection, Ellery Pierce, a technician at a firm that made anamatronic creatures for movie studios and theme parks, decided to fabricate one from scratch."  Well, actually, I suppose that statement is erroneous, as Phyllis is complete almost immediately.  And just as immediately strikes out on her own.  'Round about page twenty-eight or twenty-nine.  So, really, the book covers her emancipation and life on her own, her reunion with the man who built her and what they do once they're back together again.

Anyway.

The way the novel is written, life is pretty much exactly how it is in real life, except for the building of an anamatronic woman - which put the book soundly into the sci-fi section of the library.  And then, on page twenty-seven, it all kind of goes to hell.  I suppose that the author intended for his readers to be as surprised as his protagonist by the realization that *other* people had anamatronic spouses, too...but it didn't work for me.  I felt like I was being asked to suspend a WHOLE LOT of disbelief when it turned out that all of the spouses invited to a dinner party turned out to be robots masquerading as human.  Granted, the dinner party consisted of two other couples, but it kind of read as if the three of them were pretty much the ONLY other robot spouses out there, so that they were also the next door neighbor and gym buddy of Pierce was a bit too much of a stretch for me.

So, I was ready to pitch the book out the window before I got to page thirty.  I grudgingly decided to give the author a little bit longer to redeem himself, but I realized after finishing the book that'd I'd felt mistrustful the rest of the read.  And I stopped half-way through the last chapter to tell Richard that I felt like I was about to be set up for something ridiculous again at the end of the book.  That didn't quite happen, but I was left feeling pretty lukewarm about the whole thing.

The premise was interesting enough, but neither of the two main characters was sympathetic.  In Phyllis's case, I suppose that makes sense.  But Pierce wasn't strong enough or likeable enough or much-of-anything enough for me to really care much about what happened to him.

Eh.

I'm not really irritated that I spent the time reading the novel but I'm probably not going to search out another book by the same author anytime soon.

Better luck next time, I hope.

Yay for Books!

Bug and I made it to the library and got our library cards today.  I kind of can't believe that it took so long for us to get around to getting them...but there's been a lot going on.  And I'm so excited that Bug has his own card!  At our old library he was still a smidge too young to have one of his own.

With today being our first visit, we were limited on the number of items that we were allowed to check out.  Five apiece.  Which was probably a good thing, otherwise we'd have come home with entirely too many books and CDs and movies.  As it was, we picked up four books and a video each.  (And had to put back a book to get the videos...but Bug was pretty excited about taking something home to watch, too.)

The library was nice.  Light and bright and open.  The librarians we spoke to were very nice and very helpful.  Everything was laid out nicely and things were easy to find.  The children's section was large and had a comfortable play and reading area.  Bug and I spent some time hanging out over there after we'd picked out what we were going to take home.

I was a little surprised, though, by some of the things they *didn't* have.  Not much selection for a few authors that I looked for specifically.  Like Jane Austin.  I got a craving for some Austin last week and the library had one book.  One.  But it was one I hadn't read yet, so I picked it up.  The other books I more or less chose at random.  I've had some pretty good luck doing that in the past.

Today's book list: Persuasion by Jane Austin, The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson, Adventures of the Artificial Woman by Thomas Berger and (the one I'm a little loathe to admit to) Hex Appeal by Linda Wisdom.  To keep myself on track with getting through them before the due dates and so that they can perhaps lead me to other books/authors/etc, I'm making a mental promise to write a bit about each of them as I get through them.

Now, off to read...