You know how people list the books they've been reading because they want to recommend them (or not)? Or so they'll seem cool because they're literate? Well, I read a lot. In fact, it was a problem when I was in school--I was constantly busted for reading non-class material and having my books confiscated. The confiscated material varied wildly. In the third grade, I had a Garfield comic book and Gone With the Wind taken from my desk. I'm still pretty bad about it, though I don't read in class, at least not in these. I'm at the point where my classes have about 20 students, so you can't really get away with it. Also, I want to graduate.

Anyhow, I have a huge stack of books with me right now.

Oh, also, I'm not going to link to Amazon anymore, because of this lovely site: buyblue.org. I mean, I'm keeping my wish list, you know, but book and movie links go to Barnes and Noble. Also, I'm going to feel better about buying Starbucks from now on. It's a fun site and I highly recommend it. You know, of course, that I'm buying from those companies which donated heavily to the DNC, but I suppose this site is an equally effective resource for those who wish to buy red.

Now what would be really amazing would be finding a company who declined tax abatements when building a new facility. "No, that's fine, we'll pay our fair share."

Anyhow, back to the books I recently finished:
The New Confessions, by William Boyd. Like Any Human Heart, The New Confessions is a wonderful fictional memoirs about a life filled with disappointments mitigated by periodic highs. Ultimately, they're about how we're not special and our lives are more likely to be troubled and troublesome than a happy story about the human spirit. Very British. Or Scottish, in this case.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Jonathan Safran Foer is 28 and has arguably written two great novels already. Kind of like Martin Amis. But Jewish instead of really interested in Jews.

More later. Off to the Original Pancake House!