Prompt #2: Public Space vs. Private Space (116)

Imagine someone who uses a public space as a private space. This person is not crazy but has a reasonable excuse for behaving this way.


Today I'm working with an exercise from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kitely. One suggestion is to do several exercises over the span of ten days or so and try to make them individual, but able to be laced together at the end. I'm going to give it a shot. This one had a suggested word count (400) but it wasn't working, so there you go.

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The email went out a few days before it was supposed to happen: a change of plans. I need to reschedule. I'm including a link to the map. Be there Saturday at 3. All replies to the email were ignored.

When Saturday arrived, Tom's friends showed up at the appointed location with all the necessary supplies: Raz, his hair in rainbow dreadlocks, and Fae, dressed like Lady Gaga, came together and Laney, who looked plain but had more piercings than the rest of them combined, a few minutes later. They exchanged curious glances with one another but shrugged it off and started distributing the drinks and snacks they'd smuggled in.

Tom was the last to arrive and even plainer than Laney, hair buzzed short and boring brown thanks to his old day job, wearing a simple hoodie and jeans. In this group of misfits, Tom was the one who didn't look like he belonged. Laney handed him a cup, which he took with a sheepish grin as he unloaded his backpack.

"So, Tom..." She bit her lip, glancing at the groups of other twenty-somethings in the room, pairs or trios, pointing at this bookshelf and that lamp, comparing prices.

He swallowed a mouthful of cookie. "Yeah?"

Raz interrupted, saying what was on all their minds. "Why are we at Ikea?" Tom had always hosted before now.

It was a Saturday afternoon and the crowds were milling around them, trying to ignore the fact that they had just busted out a Scrabble board, drinks and snacks, and were awkwardly making themselves in one of the living rooms on the third floor.

"I just wanted to try something different. Why not?"

This time it was Fae's turn. "Because that mom just looked at me like I might eat her kid and now everyone's avoiding this corner of the room? What gives?"

"Forget about it." He passed around the bag of tiles and unfolded the board. "Let's play."

----

Tom won. He always won Scrabble but no one complained because he really wasn't good at much of anything else they played. Fae and Raz were laughing and high-fiving him as they packed up, making plans to head downstairs to grab a plate of meatballs before going home. Laney lingered, though, rounding up the last of the plasticware even as Tom fitted the little wooden racks into the game box and closed it.

"So why -really-, Tom? I'm surprised no one threw us out." In fact, they hadn't seen a single employee in the entire hour or so that it took to get through all the tiles. Saturdays were always busy though, so it was possible they had just gone unnoticed. "Is everything okay?" She chucked the cups into a garbage can as they headed past the food court and through the front doors.

"Everything's fine, really. Let me walk you to your car." He started to lead off in the direction of her ride; an unmistakably ancient purple Jeep of some lineage, but she interrupted, grabbing his arm as she stood still.

"Tom..." The vehicle she pointed at was a clunker, by all accounts, with band stickers and slogans stuck all over the back end, but unmistakable as it had always looked like that for as long as she had known him. But now every inch of space was crammed full with boxes, clothes, CDs...she thought she even saw the end of a raggedy mop pressed against the passenger window.

"Forget it, Laney." He shrugged her off and fumbled for his keys.

"What happened?" Her voice rose an octave.

"I'm leaving, Lane. I got fired two months ago. Sold what I could and the rest of it is what you see. I've got a lead on a job in Santa Fe." He was at the driver's side door now, unlocking it.

"Why didn't you say something? You could have stayed with one of us, or let us help you look..."

"There's nothing here. I tried. Nothing." He waved a hand at the oppressive grey sky. "I was going to email you when I got there." He nudged her aside, opened the door and climbed in. "Look. I'm sorry. But I'm sick of here."

"But you can't--!"

"No buts, Lane. I'm gone." She grabbed for the door as he closed it, but missed, and she heard the distinct 'thunk' of the lock as he started up the car. "I'll write!"

She backed away from the car, but not before aiming a kick at his bumper as he backed out of the spot. "Asshole!"

She had a sinking feeling that it was the last time they'd ever speak. She was right.

Prompt #1: Describe a typical day during your Jr. High years.

My morning begins with the incessant beeping of my alarm clock. I'm a real grouch when a human being wakes me up, morning or not, and so Mom handed me an alarm clock after one too many sour mornings when I was six or seven or so. Now I usually catch the alarm in the first ten seconds or so. My alarm is set for 5:46. Mom's alarm is set for 4:23. I don't know why we can't set our clocks to go off at the normal even times that other people do. I know that my clock is set for the bare minimum of time it takes to hop out of bed and drag on some clothes, grab my lunch (which I won't eat) and my backpack (which smells like moldy sandwiches), and be ready to get in the car with Mom.

She drives me up the road not two minutes, to my grandparents' house. Eventually I will be allowed to stay home in the mornings, get my own breakfast, and walk to the bus stop myself, but not just yet. I'm younger than everyone else in my grade due to a mid-year birthday and the decision of my teachers to place me in third grade when we came back from winter break of what had started as my second-grade year. I missed the times tables, fractions, and cursive handwriting. I'm not sure this was the wisest move, as it took me a while to get caught up on that stuff, and even longer to get caught up in the finer points of acting the age of my peers. I probably won't really get there until college, if not later. But for now, I am concerned only with whatever sugary cereal my grandfather might have splurged on for me--in grade school it was almost always corn flakes or plain Cheerios, but now I'm getting Honeycomb and Waffle Crisp. I don't know what changed, but I don't complain.

Once it starts getting light, or in the winter, before the sun has even peeked out, I head to the bus stop, which is only a few steps down the hill. My grandmother sometimes watches me go, standing at the front door. I don't look forward to the bus, really. It is the last few minutes of sanctuary--at least in the mornings, when everyone else is still groggy and half-asleep--before what is to my eleven-year-old self, somewhat of a living hell.

Mornings aren't so bad, with language classes and science, but then there's gym and that involves hiding in the bathroom stalls to change. The locker room, which is the same one my mom used when she went to high school in the same building, is no preservation of modesty. Gym is embarrassing and I stick to my best friend who is similarly disinclined towards physical activity. After gym is band--my favorite--and I enjoy the acerbic wit of Mr. M, even if he is sexist, because I enjoy playing.

By the time fourth period rolls around, though, I have to pee. We are only allowed to leave class to pee once a week (we have to be signed out in our school-issued planners, and teachers check to see how often you go), so I usually have to hold it because it's almost impossible to get to your next class if you detour for the bathroom between classes. There are some teachers that will send you with a hall pass instead, and you impose on their generosity as much as possible without setting off the warning bells that will make them think you're smoking in there or something when really you just have a small bladder and had extra milk with breakfast this morning. If I can't get to the bathroom, odds are that I've either squirmed uncontrollably through an entire class until lunch, absorbing nearly nothing of the lesson because I'm focusing on my bladder's spasms, or I've wet myself to some degree. I am ashamed, of course, but at least my shirts are long and cover up my sins.

Lunch is normally outside with the few outcast friends I've managed to collect, and for some reason we do not eat lunch. Sometimes, in later days, I will discover that I can spend my lunchtime on the growing Internet! of 1996/7 and at least once get in trouble from the librarian for trying to print hundreds of pages of the libretto to one of my favorite musicals. She tracks me down later specifically to ask me what I was thinking. I don't know the answer to that question.

Instead of throwing whatever perishables I have packed for lunch each day, I let them collect in my backpack, which has the strangest odor to it after a few weeks of this. In my memory, this will be the smell of junior high, sour and rotting, and it fits my opinion of those two years in educational limbo between elementary and high school. It's like someone decided that kids our age were so obnoxious that they just separated us from the rest of the world until we got the worst of it out of our systems.

Afternoons were average, with at least one really interesting class for the "gifted" kids. Both years, last period was always the worst. Math with B. C., whose unrelenting torment about my furry legs in seventh grade eventually allowed me to persuade mom to let me start shaving. Eighth grade was choir. I loved singing (and was a proud alto) but not the girls I sat with, who never missed an occasion to mock me relentlessly for anything and everything, real or imagined. I felt fortunate to leave class a little early, one of two girls chosen to spend the last half hour of the day watching out the window in the principal's office with the Intercom microphone, calling buses as they arrived, dismissing the students who rode them. One of the reasons I was chosen, I think, was that aside from knowing I wouldn't abuse the PA, my bus was one of the last to leave. Eventually we would give the call that all students remaining were dismissed, and we would make our way outside to wait for our own transportation home.

I had a sort-of boyfriend, and he lived close enough to me that we rode the same bus home, and so I had some solace as we rumbled back to where we started every day, often heading back to my grandmothers' house until my mom came home from her job. I was allowed to walk as far as the top of the hill with him, but then I had to come back. If I behaved myself I could talk to him on the phone for a half hour, and a half hour only. We spent a lot of the time singing together because we were just weird like that.

Until dinner, I would hole up in my grandfather's bedroom, where there was a tiny color TV with a dial that ratcheted loudly as it went around. If I spun it too quickly my grandmother would yell. It only got about eight channels and I watched a lot of PBS. I might work on my homework while we waited for Mom, and when she came we would finally have dinner together, and then she and I would go home.

----

Okay, so not my favorite prompt, but it was what came up when I hit the button. Maybe tomorrow will be more interesting? I tried to remember my dreams when I woke up, but I could remember nothing beyond a guy whose eyes were sometimes red.

Current prompt from http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html. Always taking suggestions for sites with short creative writing prompts!

Reflection

So maybe it's the (crappy) weather, or maybe it's just my mood, but I've been reading through an old blog (2006-2007) tonight and it actually surprised me that my writing back then wasn't total garbage. That going back and looking at it, I'm kind of pleased with some of the things I said and the ideas I wrote about. I'm especially intrigued by the records I made of my dreams on a fairly regular basis. They were all quite interesting and lovely (even when they were horrific) and of course by now they are completely vanished from my memory.

I want to write again. As evidenced by this blog, I have a very difficult time doing so consistently. This is supported by the sporadic nature of other blogs and journals I've written, scattered about the internet in the past (oh my God has it been that long?) nine years or so. I started my first on LiveJournal in 2001, not long before I graduated high school. That journal was mostly abandoned by 2004 though I continued to make occasional posts (announcing the wedding and stuff like that) through 2007. From 2006 to 2007 I wrote on Vox, and then abandoned the whole blogging thing again until early 2008, when I started making posts here. And I've made all of...ten? posts in the past two years, so I can't say that I've spent a lot of time working on that "writing" thing lately. Reading, yes, as always, and I'll probably keep writing about reading because I feel like it gives me a direction when there's not always anything else to say.

Lent is upon us. I mentioned this to my husband upon seeing some very strange European Carnival pictures today and he mentioned that he felt like he should do something. I reminded him that it involved giving up something you liked, or a vice--not necessarily something bad for you, and now I'm thinking. I wonder if I can "give up" laziness and maybe kick this depression (hello SAD, nice to see you--again!)...writing isn't easy, and doing it every day is especially not easy. And laziness is certainly a bad habit that I could be rid of happily. The SAD is particularly on my mind right now--until I searched for "Lent" on Wikipedia just now, I swear to you that my Google search bar had "pictures of sunny days" in it because I was searching for any sliver of sunshine to brighten up my evening. There's no official diagnosis here or anything but the two feet of snow outside, constant snowy days, and half of February crossed off on the calendar all point that direction.

How long does it take to make a habit? Forty days sounds like a good start. And even if I think this is all crap now, well, firstly--there's pretty much no one reading it. Second, there's a decent chance that I might come back to it in a couple of years and think, hey, that's not so bad after all...

Now I want a rose goblin of my own...

Welcome to September! The weather here is perfect for what, in my head, is really the true beginning of Fall. It's a marvelously crisp autumnal morning, and we have all the windows thrown open to let in fresh, cool air that lacks even a hint of the oppressive humidity that August brought. If Summer here only lasts one blistering month, I just might have to consider settling in for the long haul.

The other great thing about September is that it brings October, but in this case I'm not talking about the month of ghouls and candy corn--I'm talking about October Daye, the changeling (half-faerie, half-human) protagonist of Seanan McGuire's Rosemary and Rue, which releases today. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I imagine, her books will have a strict-on-sale date (which is usually imposed as an author becomes more widely known), but luckily for those of us who have been looking forward to this book, there was none for this release. I was lucky enough to find the book over the weekend; I devoured it on Saturday evening and have been pondering a review ever since.

This book is such an enormous amount of fun. Those who read a lot of fantasy--and especially the kind in which the magical world intersects with our own--will appreciate the author's technique. She's really done a fantastic job of fleshing out the world that Toby--short for October--lives in, but does so subtly, not bashing the reader over the head with the fantastic creatures and characters that pass in and out of her life. A lot of this has to do, I think, with a somewhat (wonderfully) nontraditional approach to the magical world she's introducing to us all. Many writers choose to have their protagonist also be a newcomer to the setting of their books, but McGuire's Toby is well-versed in the lore of her world--she's just been out of it for a while. It allows her to explain the rules to us by showing, not telling. It doesn't hurt that, much like the reader immersed in the book, Toby lives in both worlds--we can relate to her in this one and follow her into the other.

I appreciated the lack of stereotypical romance plots that many authors use to add another degree of conflict to their characters' lives. You know the kind: somewhere, a couple of pages before it happens, the dialogue changes ever-so-slightly, and already you're groaning because you can already tell that the author's going to throw these two characters together. I hope that if Toby is able to move on from some unfortunate events in her past, that things will continue to be reasonable in that regard, and not drag us through the Ranger, no--Joe, no--Ranger, no--Joe god-awfulness that Evanovich subjects her readers to every summer (and sometimes on holidays!). I think we can trust Seanan not to do that--she's altogether too clever at what she does for that tired trope.

I don't want to give a lot of spoilers here, so it's difficult to discuss the plot of the book, but I think it's fair to say that even if you think you know where the story's headed, you may be surprised to see how it gets there. Seanan is fearless. She doesn't put her characters up on some high shelf and make them untouchable. The bad guys don't suddenly develop Stormtrooper Syndrome when they're chasing Toby down a dark alley--and neither does anyone else. Bad things happen--though I have to admit, occasionally pushing the limits of plausibility in Toby's case, but then again she's a magical creature and has a lot of friends (and enemies) in high places, and so I was willing to accept the way things went in that regard.

There is such a high level of attention to detail in these books. Every character has a signature scent to their magic, which I find such a wonderful little tidbit, something that really enhances the world and my experience of it. We get a pronunciation guide to all the fun-but-obscure faerie names--and there are many types of faerie populating this universe. There are rose goblins--catlike creatures with thorns instead of fur--they're hypoallergenic! McGuire is clearly familiar with the realms, both mundane and magical, that Toby inhabits and gives us so much that it's so easy and enjoyable to climb on and go along for the ride.

One thing that I was left wondering about was the faerie world's sensitivity to iron, which is an established weapon against fae and their ilk both in and out of Toby Daye's universe. Iron is used in the book against magical creatures, even against Toby herself, to cause great harm, but Toby is also Daoine Sidhe and has some blood magic in her limited repertoire. Furthermore, Toby is part-human. Since iron is a fairly significant component of blood--at least, of human blood--it seems like there should be some problems there. I'm not sure if the signature copper scent of Toby's magic is supposed to be a hint that faerie blood is different, but if iron is such a powerful weapon against those of faerie, I'm curious how that might be resolved. Perhaps if faerie blood is different from human blood, the mixing of it would be one of the things that makes changelings weaker, and why Toby experiences painful backlash when she overexerts herself magically. I imagine that this will be addressed in future books--with several more already scheduled to come out or in the works (March and September 2010!) she can't put all her cards on the table just yet, after all!

Having read Seanan's blog posts for the past few years, it's easy to see how her personality really shines throughout the book, from the blaze orange text on the cover to Toby's real name, the dialogue's snarky wit and the appearance of wonderfully interesting takes on the typical faerie lore, not to mention the pair of Siamese cats and the San Francisco setting. She's done her research, added a fair measure of creativity, and stirred in a heaping helping of her own curious life; the result is completely captivating.

There's so much to talk about and I really don't want to give away too much, so I'll simply say this: if you enjoy urban fantasy, read this book. If you enjoy impeccably-crafted worlds rich with detail, read this book. If you like a main character you can relate to, read this book. If you love a good story, read this book.

While the "girl hero against the world" genre is ubiquitous, Toby Daye is no Stephanie Plum (though there was a car wreck that made me quirk my eyebrow--and doesn't Harry Dresden drive a Beetle?) and I don't expect to see the same formula but with different covers in future releases from McGuire. The October Daye novels show great promise, and I'm adding my voice to the already-growing list of reviewers shouting: read this book!

More about Rosemary and Rue can be found on Seanan McGuire's website, here, including a preview sample of the story. The sequel, A Local Habitation, is slated for March 2010.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Boy, time does fly. It's been three months since I started that new job, and while I like it, the schedule doesn't quite seem to jive with my early-bird nature. The good news (for this book-loving soul) is that I've definitely found a way to take advantage of all the new books in my life, not to mention the Half-Price Books just up the street.

Pretty much the entirety of my 45-minute lunch break is spent reading, nearly every single day. At first, I would do this in my little office cubicle, because the chair was comfy and the food I bring is pretty simple. Then a bigwig took up temporary residence in the conference room right opposite my cube--a conference room that we don't call "the glass fishbowl" for nothing. My boss rather discreetly told me that while she and everyone else knew I was on my lunch break and not just goofing off, that it would be better to sit out in the building's atrium area if I was going to read. That was, for the most part, fine and dandy. The only reason I hadn't gone out before was a) new-job jitters in an unfamiliar place and b) the construction.

Our building is currently in the process of being converted from a convention center to an office building. The floor that I work one was one of the first done, but now they're working on redoing the rest of the building--and it is loud. I'm happy to say that about ten minutes into my break, however, the construction guys (I haven't seen any girls, anyway...) all head home for the day--I work a later shift so my "lunchtime" is at 3:00. Usually by the time I'm finished eating, all is quiet and I have a good half hour to read before heading back into the office.

My roommate and I have also decorated our patio, covering every available surface with plants, and it's a lovely sanctuary where I've spent many summer Saturdays curled up with a good book, cat snoozing by my side.

In the past three months I've plowed through pretty much all of Piers Anthony's Xanth series, with the exception of some of the more recent ones. A friend was cleaning out her shelves in preparation for a move and offered to send me her collection because she thought I would like them. I did, although sometimes the puns and gimmicks got a little tiring. So I took a break from those and read other things for a bit.

I read through the Riftwar Saga, by Raymond C. Feist. Sometimes the books were so dense that I would realize that I had been skimming through the past few pages and put it aside for a couple of days until I was ready to jump in again. It's definitely more of an old-fashioned feeling fantasy, and although more of the sequels are available to me, it might be a while before I'm feeling up to plunging back in again.

I re-read 1632 by Eric Flint, which has always held a special place in my mental library, as the town the story is set in, Grantville, is based on a town right outside the one I grew up in, and the school, at least, I have visited and know well enough to smile at the descriptions.

I also re-read Christopher Stasheff's A Wizard in Rhyme books, which I read for the first (and only, until now) time back in college, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that while I remembered enjoying the books, I didn't remember much of what had happened. Essentially, it was like reading a brand new series but with the added bonus of knowing I'd be happy at the end.

My husband and I went to see Julie & Julia, which I enjoyed, and stopped at the bookstore not long after (I had a gift card I'd been wanting to use) to pick up Julie Powell's book. It was interesting, but the Julie portrayed by Amy Adams was certainly a more likeable Julie. I'm still planning on picking up Child's book, My Life in France, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Finally, the most recent thing I pulled off my roommate's shelves was an unexpected pleasure--Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines. The story of Jig left me giggling as the genre was turned on its head--in a good way. We have the second book in the series, Goblin Hero, which will be next week's lunchtime entertainment, but I've just today found out there's a third in the series, Goblin War, and that the author has another series in progress as well that sounds really exciting, so I see a trip to Half-Price in my near future.

So that's my whirlwind update. Stay tuned for something even more exciting very soon: I've gotten my paws on Seanan McGuire's Rosemary and Rue and I can't wait to talk about it!

Home is where you hang your hat...

We rejoin our heroine in her new digs. In the past two months she's completely changed just about everything--left the cushy-but-occasionally-dull office job and the college town that's had the shine worn off for a few years now and headed into what John Green's protagonist Miles Halter might call "The Great Perhaps."

I'm back! Who knows how long it'll last this time, as I've had very little time to devote to reading whilst uprooting my life and settling in a new town.

The books are all unpacked, though, and beckoning. Our new/old roommate has a collection several orders of magnitude larger than mine, and I'm itching to get my fingers on them just as soon as I can get everything else sorted out.

The first order of business, replacing my wonderful former job. Check.

Check? Awesome!

More details to come...

Weehah.

Well, hey, looky there.

Life's changed for the bookwench. While she still loves reading, she no longer spends her days laboring over books and coffee. She's moved up in the world! Now her days are spent behind a desk in that cushy office job she always wanted, but turns out it can be pretty dull, too. The people she works with are much nicer, though, and the work more fulfilling aside from the whole lack-of-books thing. She's thinking about getting a library card since, in the six months since she left her old job, everything on her shelves has been read and re-read. She's starting to feel desperate, feel the itch for new words, new worlds.

A return? Who knows. But when the sun comes out the words may flow again.

Not Dead Yet

Apologies for my recent absence--Fearless Fourteen almost scared me away.

I kid!

Not that the book wasn't relatively awful (thanks again for the warning, Liz), but I've been on vacation this past week, and since work is how I obtain my reading material, generally speaking, I haven't had anything new to read since this time last week.

My husband and I took the week off together, and spent a couple nights in Pittsburgh. I uploaded the pictures to Flickr, and they should be in the sidebar as soon as I get it working.

Once I head back to work (Monday, presumably; I don't have my schedule yet for this week.) I'll have more for you all!

The thunder rolls...

It's been a stormy day in bookwench land. When I went out earlier to run errands it was sprinkling, and by the time I got to the store it was simply pouring. Of course, I left my umbrella at work a few weeks ago, and so I did the best I could and parked close to the door.

When I got back home, the sun was shining again, and I curled up on the couch with the windows open to finish Bar Flower, which is a memoir of a young American woman who pursued her dream to live and work in Japan in order to become fluent.

I took Japanese as my foreign language requirement in college, and that certainly originally sparked my interest in this book. Oddly enough, something else that grabbed my attention was the book's size. While hardcover, the size is more similar to a trade paperback. It's just about the perfect heft and size for my hands.

Beyond that, I think I was drawn to this book because I know that never in a million years will I go and live in Japan, despite my interest in the nation's culture both past and present. I am far too "different" to feel comfortable spending extended periods of time amongst people who tend to emphasize sameness and fitting in. As Lea reminds her readers, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. And I would certainly stick out like a sore thumb.

So, as in many things, I live vicariously through reading. It's certainly cheaper than travel, no?

Lea starts out teaching English to schoolchildren but loses her job after a particularly unsavory encounter with a psychologist who doesn't have to work under the same privacy limitations that she is used to. When all other options fail, she turns to the thriving bar scene and becomes a bar hostess: a strangely modern evolution of the Japanese geisha.

During my read of this book, I did often think about Arthur Golden's novelization, loosely based on the life of Mineko Iwasaki (whose book I also read and found to resonate perhaps more strongly than the fictional account) , but there were few intersections aside from some more obvious ones. Lea herself is preoccupied with geisha, so these connections are easy to make.

I was actually surprised by the rather abrupt end to Lea's narrative, but it certainly does align with her final exit from the stage of hostessing and addiction. I wish that this part would have been fleshed out a bit more. There were a lot of disorganized, chaotic parts (both in writing and in plot, possibly intentional and symbolic) that could have been more cohesive, and a lot of kind of random information that I wasn't sure where it was going. But this was a memoir and not a novel, and so I tend to be a bit more forgiving, I suppose.

Despite all that, I'm glad I read this one. It was engrossing and interesting and added a new facet to my knowledge of Japanese culture. And it reminded me that I haven't forgotten everything since college--which is always a good thing!

Thunderstorms are rolling through again tonight, so I'm going to wrap this up now and get it posted before the power drops. Tomorrow, Fearless Fourteen, which, thanks to Liz's comments in my previous post, I'll be reading with a grain of salt.

Hah.

And once again, your friendly neighborhood Bookwench was consumed by the grind of real life. I offer my apologies.

I don't know what it is about retail that somehow manages to entirely consume your soul from time to time. I've experienced this feeling often around the winter holidays, but the past couple of months have been almost as bad.

My reading list has grown considerably since the last time I wrote, though unfortunately there were truly only a few books of note.

The first that comes to mind, Barbara Walters' Audition, was an unlikely read for me. My store sold out of it almost immediately when it was first released, but after a couple of weeks on the bestseller lists we had a fairly solid standing stock. I would have probably ignored it altogether, however, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Walters made an appearance on the Daily Show one night when I just happened to be watching. There was something about her sense of humor, that she would even go on Stewart's show, and the way she handled herself once there, that nudged me into seeing what all the fuss was about.

I'm glad I did.

While the memoir is not, of course, a great work of literature in the traditional sense (sometimes it gets a bit wordy and, dare I say, sentimental), it truly does justice to the extraordinary life that this woman has lived, and is living. If any of you out there are familiar with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, you might have a similar experience to mine: as I was reading I kept identifying bits and pieces of the book and song that matched up, and I was amused.

Barbara Walters has pretty much lived the last 50+ years of notable American and world history. For someone like myself, who often struggled with history classes in the traditional academic setting, this is a much more accessible and interesting way to gain a greater understanding of "what really happened."

It does seem to me that I've been leaning rather strongly towards nonfiction of late. I go through phases when all I want to read is fiction, and then suddenly nothing in that particular realm interests me in the least; it's as though the oasis had dried up without warning, and all that was left to browse were stones and dry leaves and nothing very interesting at all.

At that point I'm left wandering my usual alternative-reading haunts: biography and science. For me, science is a subject that, in various ways, I clearly did well at in school but once things got to a certain technical level (chemistry, physics) I generally became daunted by the math involved and gave up. So occasionally I'll stumble through those shelves and find something that I can relate to.

This coming week, however, I will allow myself to indulge in what I might normally dismiss as fluff. Honestly, in my most humble, bookwench-y opinion, there's a lot of fluff out there. A great deal of it is not, as they say, relevant to my interests. But Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen, and as I got sucked into that series years ago by my best friend and fellow book-a-holic, I'll give this one a go as I do with each of Evanovich's yearly efforts.

Last year's title, Lean Mean Thirteen, actually made me wonder when the series was finally going to end, because if that was the best the author could do after all that time, surely it was time to call it quits. I know that, generally speaking, all the books have a similar scheme: Plum is desperate, Plum sludges through job, flirts with Ranger, hijinks with Lula and Grandma, gets into a situation more serious than she can handle, calls Joe, blows up a few cars, is rescued, spends a night with Morelli and his dog, eats dinner with parents and newlywed sister (and children), and eventually manages to save the day despite an unbelievable number of fumbles, and all with a spectacular amount of innuendo and humor. Usually these machinations are at least entertaining enough to be worth an hour of so of my time. Last time was the first time I can really say I felt disappointed by the end of the book.

However, I've had a sneak peek at the first few pages of Fourteen, and it seems to be much more promising. So I'm looking forward to that.

I'm also working on another memoir, Bar Flower, that is quite engrossing and will likely merit a post of its own once I finish.

For now, however, it's just about that time where I scuttle off to live amongst the tomes for an hour or eight.

Ta!