Reading Between the Lines

Dan and I have both been busy with all sorts of things, but we have both managed to find time to read. It is sometimes hard for me to get excited about reading given how much of it I have to do for work, but I have discovered that if I can stand a few insect bites, time spent in the swing under the (mercifully non-whomping) willow tree in our yard is time very well spent indeed. I prefer not to go out there during the heat of the day, but the morning and evening hours are usually comfortable enough for a little quality time with some paper, ink and glue.

Of course, we both read the new Harry Potter book. Without offering any spoilers, I liked book 7 best, with the exception of the final chapter exploring future things in the lives of the surviving characters. Frankly, I thought Rowling tied a few of those things up just a little too tidily. That said, the book was a good read and provided fitting closure to the series. I waited a bit longer to read it than most of the population of the Harry-reading world, but it proved very worth the wait.

I'm also working my way through three or four other books, each of a different ilk. Two of them came from the library -- namely Freddy and Fredericka, by Mark Helprin, and Talk to the Hand, by Lynn Truss. The fictional British royals in Freddy were put aside in favor of Harry, but I look forward to visiting them again soon. Talk to the Hand I just picked up last night. I needed some sleep so I forced myself to stop reading when midnight crept up on me, but I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to pick up where I left off at my earliest convenience. Truss has the sort of biting wit and rather charmingly curmudgeonly character that I find delightful. She laughs at herself as she tackles the rather distinct lack of manners in today's world. My third work in progress is slow going. It's the rather ponderous and hulking tome entitled Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, written by the brilliant Douglas Hofstadter. That book is a mental workout and something of an emotional ride, and I am barely through the first chapters! It is, in many ways, one man's grief over the loss of his wife in the form of the exploration of one French poem and the many tangentially relevant ways it intersects life. I am also working my way through a tattered old volume of O. Henry stories when I get into a particular reading mood.

Dan is still working on the amazing On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee. It's not the sort of book that most people read cover to cover, but Dan's not most people. It is the sort of book that ties together science, culture and human experience in a rather unforgettable way... not to mention that it is a great source of the foodie trivia that so fascinates Dan. He's also reading The Sorrows of Empire, by Chalmers Johnson, an Old Church Slavonic Grammar, the occasional programming book and would be in the middle of Landscape Painted with Tea, by Milorad Pavic, if we could find it.

For the family-types who have noted that Dan has a birthday coming up soon, I submit the list of links that currently comprise his birthday wish-list.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000DTEW/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000DR75/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005JLR8/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001EFTXI/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000007R1O/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005UQ7T/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000026FQM/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0152017968/

I think we both are enjoying our books... though I also think it is fairly obvious who is the more ambitious reader.