Words from years past
I found myself at a bit of a loose end today. Our boiler has been throwing tantrums so I had to stay at home and wait for the repair man to come and kick it back into shape. Additionally I’m trying to heal up a sore leg (skiing accident plus argument with a flight of stairs) so not wanting to move too far from the couch I decided to spend this unexpected free time uploading some reading lists from previous blogs.
It’s a pity that I let things slide with the blog previous to this one. I’d had problems with my hosting service and in a fit of pique turned my back on it entirely without backing up my data. Two and a half years worth of reading lists and blogging material lost. It quite saddens me now that I could have let such a thing happen.
Any way I’ve now included the 2005, and a portion of the 2006, reading lists that were saved from my second blogging incarnation (this currently being the fourth) and had a bit of entertainment dipping back through some entries from my early twenties. This one in particular made me laugh:
March 04, 2006
More books for me!My life of late has been a whirl of work and well, books. Work has been busy with a flux of seasonal storms and yet more up-skilling for magnificent me, now able to do the work of three.
In order to balance my ‘mind run amock’, every spare moment I’ve had has been spent curled up with a good book and just allowing the words to roll right on through.
One problem though, I’ve run out of books to read. After slowly working my way through almost everything in our book collection (there are still a few of NS’s travel, history and politics books I haven’t completely consumed), and many re-reads, I’ve found myself buying one and occasionally two or three books a week. Not the thriftiest idea out of the box.
I actually reached a point late last week where I started reading NS’s copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’, The Social Contract. Making myself proud, I read about halfway through, before deciding it was time for a break and something not so…dull. Still with little to choose from I picked up an old childhood favourite, Ordeal by Poison, the tale of Shiva an Ice Age girl, undertaking an initiation ceremony to become her Clan’s Crone. I loved this tale of courage when I was nine, but it wasn’t much of a stop gap for the furious reading crave I am experiencing.
Quickly famished for literary content I prowled our apartment, examining shelves for previously undiscovered treasures, lifting mattresses and beds in hope of discovering a lost and forgotten manuscript.
Alas it wasn’t to be, and so NS, kind and wonderful man that he is, made a heavenly suggestion.
“Would you like me to bring something home from the uni library?”
Pounce. Hug. Kiss. Adore. Worship.
There are so many reasons I love that man.
The next day I arrived home from work to find two plump novels perched on the green sofa just begging to be read. The first, The Skein of Lament, I snapped up and finished during my work commute the very next day and now Kundera’s Laughter and Forgetting awaits its own timely consumption.
I know that I should really go and visit the local library. I pass it almost daily by tram, yet I am fearful and so I’ll put a question out to any librarians possibly reading here…just how annoyed would you feel towards someone who upon last visit over four years ago, left an overdue debt of $30? Also, do libraries charge interest?
