Busy Bees

Work is cuckoobananas insane, so I've been away from the blog, and I apologize.

I also realized the other day that I was reading a lot of books at once, even by my standards. It's pretty typical for me to have three going at once--one for the train, one for the bedside, and an audiobook. But this past week, I've actually had a train book, two bedside books, a living room book and two audio books. I think that's it, though I could even be underestimating.

Brenda tells me to give up on Cell, which is one of the audiobooks. It came in two parts, and I finished the first part. It's mediocre and creeping slightly downward as the zombies start getting smart and you realize that there's some sort of diabolical plan behind what had seemed to be a zombie-themed disaster novel. It would have been better that way. I've already given you the "King needs an editor" rant, so I'll spare you that one, but I've been advised to stop reading before the characters reach Maine (they appear to be in Exeter, NH right now). Being more than halfway done, I don't know if I have a choice. The other audiobook, to which I switch when the pantomiming sentient zombies get to be too much for my delicate constitution, is The Code of the Woosters, in which occur such delightful antics as the pinching of a cow-creamer. I will leave it at that.

Trans-Sister Radio, by Chris Bohjalian, which I finished not half an hour ago, was very good--Bohjalian sometimes ends up being lighter than he means to be (not humorous, but not weighty), but his tendency to concentrate on the personal even when his plots are sociological and political has served him well. My only quibble with this book is with the awfulness of that title--I really was hoping that it would justify its corniness, but though it's a book about a transsexual and those hwo love her, and NPR plays a role, I just can't let that title slide.

Let's see, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers is getting dryer by the moment, but it's fast, too, so I'm letting it go. Everything that happens in The Sound of Music is over halfway through, and the rest is about being a bunch of Austrian singers in America during the war--learning the langugage, complaining about Americans, admiring Americans, etc. Harry Potter's been on the back burner since I put it down just before what I could tell was going to be a frustrating scene--Hermione is either going to be preachy, right, or both, and I couldn't bear any of those things right now.

Oh, and A Girl of the Limberlost was just lovely. Not as funny as Anne of Green Gables, but as sweet and charming as Little Women. God, there are so many good books in the world. I spent a few weeks intimidated by my pile, but I'm right back in the game.

Which is lucky, because the next book club pick (the name of which escapes me at the moment), is described on its back cover as "post-modern." Angels and ministers of grace defend us.