Now, where was I?

Very rudely interrupted indeed! It's been a while, so I'll probably update in bits and pieces so this doesn't become hugely, ridiculously long. Oh, and BTW, I have sent off my absentee ballot, signing (as forced to do in order to vote!) an affidavit swearing I reside at the last address at which I lived in the US. Don't think they'll let me bring my computer into the jail cell with me, so if I'm never heard from again... My mother read in the NYTimes that minorities are reporting being consistently turned away from early voting polling locations - nice.

Book-wise, I finished Cleopatra's Heir, by Gillian Bradshaw, which I enjoyed, though not nearly as much as Island of Ghosts or The Sand-Reckoner. Interesting view of the society and the racial tensions of the place and time, and poor old Caesarion was an appealingly dreadful but quickly-becoming-sympathetic character, but his transformation was perhaps a bit too quick to be convincing. Glad at least we weren't expected to be rapt in admiration of Cleopatra, as I'd never have managed!

Then I went into The Grand Tour (sequel to Sorcery and Cecelia, for anyone who doesn't know). I expected to be slightly disappointed, both from reports of others and just as a general expectation that a sequel to a book I've loved will always disappoint, and wasn't for a long time, and then was. By the time I got to the end I just felt as if the authors weren't having as much fun as they seemed to have with S&C, and the climax was a bit repetitive. The big, dramatic, everyone's tied up or otherwise incapacitated while a huge spell is about to be performed which will have dire consequences scene was done in S&C AND the Mairelon books, and for me, done best in Mairelon the Magician. No images available, which is perhaps just as well, as the cover picture is horrible, awful, dreadful! Younger daughter is now reading this, and it'll be available for loan afterwards, if anyone's interested. (This includes you, Vierran, even though you're not in BookCrossing!)

After that came a mystery book, about which I will post in friends only at some stage. And sort of at the same time, my brushing teeth/other odd moments', not very serious read was The Stainless Steel Rat. Well, the series certainly didn't become so popular due to the strength of his writing style in this first book! I've started another SSR I picked up at the same time and am reading it in the same way. Mostly, though, I'm currently reading The Golem's Eye, the sequel to The Amulet of Samarkand, which I really enjoyed. This one is as much fun as the first when it's Bartimaeus narrating, but I'm starting to feel that Stroud really needs to develop a bit of sympathy in/for Nathaniel. But there was a scene (from Bartimaeus' point of view) in the British Museum which was just priceless!

The Poetry Chain

When you see this, post some poetry in your own journal. (From dorianegray.)

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver.

One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop.