Thursday, November 16, 2006

Oh, snap

SNAP.

I really did not mean to let this happen again, but. Well. Good intentions vs the road to Hell. Welcome to my life.

Let's just gloss over that shall we, and get back to the books.

Oh, how I love my precious, precious books. (Also, I need more bookcases because the dear things are super crowded.)

When we left off, I had finished "The House of Mirth" and was starting "Crime and Punishment", with the sole purpose being to complete one challenge this year, dammit (and no, I didn't). I've only been able to read the first 'book' so far, since time, that precious commodity is seemingly so rare these days. I was getting to work early, so I could quickly read a chapter before going to the office, but with the way Seattle traffic has been lately, well, these days I'm starting to feel lucky that I'm making it to work, much less on time. Still, I will continue reading "C&P", since I really am enjoying it.

(Right now, he's just killed the old lady and her sister and is kinda sitting around going 'well huh, I guess I did it.')

I've also missed my last two book club meetings, not because I didn't read them, but I had plans (Baltimore and then the Rolling Stones Concert), so it kind of hit me on Monday that hey...you have a book club meeting coming up and wait, what's the book? ("The Glass Castle", by Jeannette Wells) Oh, right. So, when are you going to read it? Uh, yeah.

I bought it that night and was able to read it Tuesday, which is good as both yesterday and today are crammed full of things to do and places to be.

It was a really quick, and surprisingly entertaining read, for all that her stories about her life growing up were actually pretty damn sad. Her father was an alcoholic who had dreams of making it rich by finding gold and then building the glass castle for his family to live in; he might have been successful as he seemed highly intelligent and creative except he kept drinking away and and all money the family had. Her mother, an artist, really didn't want to be bothered by raising her children or dealing with her husband and so chose to mostly live for her work. Both parents would pretty much leave the kids to themselves, letting them learn and grow and experience for themselves, which sounds like *yay*, but really. It's not. They had rarely seemed to have food, clothes, money, or even a decent place to live. They'd move from town to town whenever the bills got to high and the creditors came looking, sponging off Jeannette's grandmother when they could.

Still, Jeannette has a way of writing these story that make them sound like fun times and not something horribly sad, which I suppose is the point. You know, the whole what doesn't kill you makes you stronger thing.