Currently reading

Don’t tell Will, but I have a new love right now:

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

It may not be Tolstoy and I may be less than 100 pages into it, but I am still head over heels.  Truthfully though, I think what I am ga-ga over these days is the very act of reading, which has taken on a whole new meaning for me these last three months that I can’t seem to put into words (I am sure, however, that Tolstoy or Ms. Simonson could find a way!).



When I stopped practicing law, I imagined that my days at home with a 3 and 1-year-old would be physically demanding; but without briefs to write, case law to read and trial work, I also naively assumed that my brain would begin to atrophy by day 5.  Instead, I find my mind is the first organ to tire out each day, much more so than working as a full-time attorney.  But even my exhausted head loves a good book (I have finally learned to just stop reading the books I don’t enjoy—life is too short!).  And how could I not enjoy a book with lines like these…

“Do you like to walk?” he asked. 

“Yes, I try to get out early three or four times a week,” she said.  “I am the crazy lady wandering the lanes in the dawn chorus.”  

“We all ought to join you,” he said.  “Those birds perform a miracle every morning and the world ought to get up and listen.”

Somehow in three short sentences, Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali (his sweetheart) have described exactly why I run in the early, early morning.  I, too, am the crazy lady in the dawn chorus.

Another line that I must remember to use again…

“The world is full of small ignorances…We must all do our best to ignore them and thereby keep them small, don’t you think?”

This is the kind of writing that makes me literally kiss a book when I am done reading it—and Will has seen me do this!  Of course, it is very difficult for me to finish a book without knowing what I am diving into next and I am happy to announce I have two options once Major Pettigrew is done (*sniff*):



Please excuse the rotated picture--Blogger is being very uncooperative right now!



Ann Patchett has become my new Barbara Kingsolver—I love everything she has written.  For those you who have not read Bel Canto, please stop reading this blog and check it out of the library immediately.  You must read that book!  And because I am always on the lookout for a good recommendation, I would love to hear from anyone who has read anything recently (or not so recently) that is a “must read."  

So many great books, so little time!