Me and the Writers’ Strike

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008, 12:56 pm

Nah, I’m no writer. But there’s been a really great side effect of the strike—I’m reading more. I’m turning the TV off and just reading. (But that does mean I’m crafting less. Can’t read and knit at the same time.)

Just finished Spook Country by William Gibson. It’s like Pattern Recognition in that the story is set in the early 21st century and most (if not all) of the technology spoken about is available today. He’s returned to using the Loa as gods of technology. One of the characters, while never called this in the story, obviously serves as a horse for Ogoun/Oshun. It is a well written book, but I think that Pattern Recognition was more gripping.

Now I’m reading The Bielski Brothers (title truncated) by Peter Duffy. Fascinating account about how a Jewish family stuck together and created a partisan movement that ultimately saved the lives of more than 1000 Jews. I’ve had so much time to read that I started the book last night and I’m already half way through it.

I’m taking just a tiny break from reading medieval history, but I’m still fascinated with the period. I’m thinking about picking up Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth AFTER I read a few more books on my ever expanding bookshelves.

I’m determined to buy no books until I finish 5 books that I can remove from my shelves (that is, not save.) Haven’t done a good job with that so far—of the 5 books I’ve read this month, 2 were the property of the beach house, 1 is medieval history (in other words, saving that for reference later), and 1 is a favorite writer (and I’ll keep his books for a while in case there’s a cross-over character/event in any of his future books). That means only 1 book for the “donate-or-sell” pile. Okay I lie, there are 3 books for that pile—I have two soap crafting books that I’ve decided to part with, and maybe a cross-stitch book.

Tags: books