Monday, March 27, 2006

Monday Rambling

Even with all the fun I had cataloging books over the weekend I did get some reading in. I managed to get through some of Clarissa. She has inched ever so slightly closer to giving in to marrying Lovelace. And she has finally made it to London after dithering at the farmhouse in the country. I am against abridgments, but in the case of this book, I wish I had chosen the shorter route. I'm through 500 pages and still have another 1,000 to go! The sloth speed of this book is beginning to drive me crazy. There has to be some sort of Zen lesson in it. Perhaps I am to learn how to slow down, be in the moment and all that. What I really want to do is give Clarissa a few good slaps. I am not a violent person but I am finding this book incites it. Sitting here just thinking about it, I imagine what great pleasure I would have in mangling this book. But it is not a bad book. It is just so slow, and the character of Clarissa so infuriating. I can feel my blood pressure going up so I'm going to change the subject to book storage. There is a great article in the Washington Post (free registration required, link via Bookninja) about people with too many books for their living space. One guy estimates he's spent over $5,000 on two rented storage spaces to hold his excess. I like the woman who considered buying the house next door to her so she could live in one and keep her books in the other. That's something I've pondered. But no article about books is worth its salt unless I end up adding a title to my TBR list. The end of the article mentions a biblioholic character from Paul Auster's book Moon Palace. Has anyone read it and if so, what'd you think?