impulse shopping for the poor reader

I currently have 63 items checked out from two different libraries (33 from one, 30 from the other).

I went to the library after work with two items in mind, and after an hour I came out with the above stack (if you're wondering--the two items I actually planned on checking out are at the top).

This is the poor reader equivalent of grocery shopping when you're hungry...and the sample lady is hanging around.

i just want to talk about the book!

So I experienced my first book group the week before last.  I was so excited to be in the room with 8 other women who had read the same book as me.  Most of the time I don't even know 1 person who has read the same book as me. :)

This month's book for the group was Room by Emma Donoghue, which I'd been wanting to read since it came out but hadn't had the chance.  I was not disappointed as it was an amazing book.  I finished it in one long sitting and was so excited to talk about it.

Not to spoil the book (if you read the book back you'll get an idea of it), but it deals with a disturbing subject in an amazingly joyful way since it's told from a 5-year-old point of view.  But instead of talking about the book, this group of women kept going off on these weird tangents (random assortment including kids not getting picked up from marching band practice, children getting run over in China, and talking to teenage boys about statutory rape laws...) that had nothing to do with the book.

I was trapped on a couch for over 90 minutes, and the book was talked about for probably a grand total of 12 of those minutes!  So frustrating, but I hope that next month's book will be talked about instead of the tangents galore of this one.

hey smokers...

So I have a problem with some of you smokers out there.  I know you have an addiction, and I'll give a minor pass to those of you over forty who smoke because you probably started before you had any idea that it might kill you one day.  But for those of you who are under forty and grew up with surgeon general warnings and ad campaigns:  I think you're fucking idiots if you smoke.  I grew up with smokers; both my dad and stepdad smoked all the time (and cracking a window in a car doesn't do much for the small child sitting next to you by the way).  My father smoked up until the day before he passed away from throat cancer, so I can understand it's hard for you to quit (again I'm only speaking to the over-forty crowd here, for the others see the fucking idiot note above).

But smokers now you're beginning to piss me off.  Do you know what really attracts cigarette smoke?  Paper.  And paper is the basis for books, which are items that I like to borrow from the library.  What's not fun in borrowing certain books is that I get that smell of ash permeating the air when I'm trying to read and a lingering smell on my hands afterwards.  I refuse to purchase used books that are from smokers' homes, but unfortunately that can't happen with library books since usually I'm checking them out because I'm too broke to buy.  Now I've always wondered why some smokers smell like smoke and others don't; I think it must be some sort of body chemistry that I may never understand.  But no matter what smokers' stuff always smells like smoke, and it reeks.

So for those of you who smoke but also have a love of borrowed literature:  please quit smoking around the library books.  Or you know just quit smoking; that works too.