books

It's surprising to me that I've been reading as much as I have this summer. It seems that most years I'm either coming up with ideas for FML (most unrealized due to time restraints) or writing. This summer, I've written very few letters. I've been spending most of my days off working on the Augmented Reality Game (or at least working on trying to get the components to work with each other -- I'll write on this task in another entry), and perhaps seeing a matinee each week. But the past few times that I've had spare moments I've been reading. When I visited Ali en route to Maine, she told me to read Plainsong by Kent Haruf, and I started it, and borrowed it from her, only to let it sit on my cabin table for weeks. When she sent me a care package in mid-July, it contained Haruf's Eventide, and I figured I'd better finish reading Plainsong and get it back to her. So I did, and she came to visit the very day I finished it. It was also the day the latest Harry Potter was released, and as I mentioned I finished that at Sand Beach this Saturday. And now, as I write this, I've just set down (half finished) Sarah Messer's The Red House, a chronicle of New England's oldest  continuously lived-in house. It was in the care package too.

I want to say that I've read another book too, but I can't recall. This happened once several summers ago -- I read Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, forgot about it, then picked it up later thinking I've heard of this before, and I like Vonnegut... and I read the first two or three chapters before I recognized it. Strange lapse of memory. I hope it doesn't get worse. I think that's why I took up journaling -- so I don't forget (as if that will help).