Book Musings

It was a bitch of a work week, and next week is going to be a doubly busy week because of the stuff that is going on.

Soo because of that, I decided my debris laden home needed a good cleaning.....God! I hate cleaning, such an endless task. Which of course led me to this much needed break...and to ponder on the musings I had during that mindless activity.

I was dusting my main bookshelves, rearranging the books in some sort of order once again, when I started really looking at the titles, the authors. Most, if not all of the books were purchased by me, or were gifts to me. I never realized what strange reading habits I possess.
One shelf is devoted to some of my favorite classics--the Bronte's, Dickens, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Stevens, Twain, etc. With special spot reserved for my Tolkien special editions, then I have the poetry section, I smiled to see Silverstein alongside Keats, but yep that is the way my mind works.

Then there are the novellists....I think I have read every Mary Higgins Clark, almost every James Patterson, every Maureen McCaffrey, every Michael Crichton, almost every Pat Conroy, Terry Pratchett, Goodkind, a few Neil Stephenson, most of Steven King, and the list goes on and on, with even a few Kris Raddish thrown in. I read most of the Robert Jourdan series...until it started to bore me beyond belief and I started getting it confused with the Goodkind series.

What amazes me the most, is that many of them I have read at least twice. How can I read a book twice, or thrice? Because I am never reading just one book at a time. Half the time I have no idea who or what I am reading until I look. *went to bedside table and looked*
Currently I am in the midst of re-reading Adams's Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (really all the books in one, is that an anthology?), re-reading Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man, and an author I have never read before---Erika Spindler's Shocking Pink, plus a book of poetry written and published by one of my clients.

Do you do that, read several at once? Each night before I go to sleep, I have to read, and I mean have to....can't nod off without....I may read a chapter of two from each, or just pick one some nights. I have always been so envious of people who can quote from a writer's work, but maybe just maybe if I read just one book at a time, I could remember. I have even re-purchased books before not realizing I had already read them....duh on me!



I currently seem to be in the need of the smiles that Adams and Pratchett can give me. I particularly was struck by chapter seven of The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe for some reason this time. I love Marvin the robot.


In Pratchett, he has a chapter on 'old ones' going on and on about how life was better in the old days...you would swear he has spent time with my clients, so stereotypical but so true. A quote:

"Everything was wrong these days. More thin, more fuzzy. No real life in anything. And the days were shorter. Mmm. Something had gone wrong with the days. They were shorter days. Mmm. Everyday took an age to go by, which was odd, because days plural went past like a stampede. ......Endless days going by fast. Didn't make sense. Mmm. Mind you, you didn't get the sense now that you used to get in the old days."

I also always get the giggles when I read Pratchett, the conversations he writes are so real, even if the characters are S/F Fantasy.

This is half a dozen wizards of Wizard University discussing a fellow wizard who died, but DEATH was not there to take him away, so he re-inhabited his body-----really guess ya gotta read it to really get it.

The conversation went like this:


"It's got to be Windle! It even talked like him!"


"It's not old Windle. Old Windle was a lot older!"


"Older? Older than dead?"

"He's said he wants his old bedroom back, and I don't see why I should move out---"

"Did you see his eyes? Like gimlets!"

"Eh? What? What'd you mean? You mean like that dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street?"

"I mean like they bore into you!"

"--its got a lovely view of the gardens and I've had all my stuff moved in and it's not fair---"

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Well, there was old Teatar--"

"Yes, but he never actually died, he just used to put green paint on his face and push the lid off the coffin and shout 'Surprise, surprise--"

""We've never had a zombie here"

"He's a zombie?"

"I think so--"

"Does that mean he'll be playing kettle drums an doing that bimbo dancing all night, then?"

"Is that what they do?"

"Old Windle? Doesn't sound like his cup of tea. He never liked dancing much when he was alive--"

"Anyway, you can't trust those voodoo gods, Never trust a god who grins all the time and wears a top hat, that's my motto."

"--I'm damned if I'm going to give up my bedroom to a zombie after waiting years for it---"

"Is it? That's a funny motto."


I dunno you reader may not find it amusing, may have to read the entire book, or be attached to his Disc World Series to really get it.....but it sooo reminds me of real life conversations with more than 3 or 4 people are taking part.

Anyway, I have wasted way too much time blogging instead of cleaning...Grrr..cleaning.