Glutty

Well, never let it be said that I finished a book or three before starting another three.

Specials, by Scott Westerfield, is the third book in the Uglies series, and I had it out of the library for about 15 minutes before I started it. Those books always take a while to get into, because they use a lot of strange slang. The great part is that it feels very natural when you get into it, and isn't that hard to follow, but it's a zone you need to be in, if you know what I mean.

Something called Brit-Think, Ameri-Think, which is an entirely too precious title for a short, cute little treatise on the cultural differences between America and England (key difference: Americans think death might just be optional, and if you work hard enough you can beat it. Brits think everything is inevitable, and there's no point in trying too hard, because it all ends up the same in the end). I was practically reading this one at the stoplights on the ride home. Another layer to that book is that it was written in 1987, so a lot of the American aesthetics are based around shag carpeting and Dallas.

I'm still reading The Sparrow, which is beautiful and harrowing. I'm finding the middle a little weak, because the nature of the flashback structure means that I know how the story ends (no big giveaway: everyone but Sandoz dies), so the parts are not driving directly toward this end or its fallout are starting to make me impatient. But in a kind of a scared way--I know it's all going to go horribly wrong, but I have no idea where it's going to come from, and it's a little like a quiet moment in a funhouse--you know they're going to jump out at you.

There's more--oh, God, there's more--but I have no time now. Let's not even talk about the articles on articles on articles for school....