Precipice

So I finished Pardonable Lies last night. I'm relieved that Maisie seems to really like her boyfriend, and appears to have smiled spontaneously (rather than in an effort to express pleasantness to another person) at the end of this last book. She still seems like a bit of a cold fish, though. I might read the next one, in hopes that she warms up.

And I'm almost to the end of Then We Came to the End. I like the book, and I think I get what he's doing. I'm curious about how the "payoff" I've heard about at the end works. I have to say that figuring out whether they'll come up with good ad campaigns is probably getting me more mileage than it as an idea is entitled to.

But now I'm at an impasse--what to read next? I'm not quite out of library books, but Anarchy and Old Dogs is another mystery, and I'm just not enough of a mystery person to be confident in that. I'll try it, but one book, dear people, is not going to tide me over.

I guess that technically I'm still in the middle of Star Spangled Manners, the extended Miss Manners essay on how American etiquette came to be what it is, and why it's so awesome (in a nutshell: egalitarianism). It's a good book, but being long and essaylike, better for dipping into than bolting down.

I'm supposed to go to the library with Sheila next week, which will open up a whole new world of possibilities. I'm thinking I might wait till then. But that means dipping again into the Shelves to pick the next big thing. Which way to go? The Pillars of the Earth looks good, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't start anything that significant till classes end in two weeks. The Queen's Fool looks dumb, but Lord, The Other Boleyn Girl was so bad I laughed through most of it. Still, I bought the darned book. Maybe that's the way to go.

Not like I don't have enough borrowed books on my shelf, but I'm not hauling Brenda's gorgeous Richard Yates compendium on the train with me.

Oh, I can't forget to mention Escape, the crazy fringe Mormon cult plural marriage runaway story. I love fringe religion memoirs, both noble (nun biographies) and scandalous (cult escapees), so this is just what I'm looking for in an audiobook. Thumbs up.

In we dive. See you after finals on Thursday!