One Day: One Book

On Friday night, I began reading The Thirteenth Tale for my Moms-with-Kids-who-were-in- Kindergarten-together Book Club. We're meeting December 13th, in some kind of numerical coincidence.
In any case, I started the book around 8:30 on Friday night and read until just past midnight. I thought Middlebrow was still reading too, but unbeknownst to me he had fallen asleep. Then I got up today and, after dropping Son at a playdate, finished the book. It's a recent record for me, one book in less than 24 hours.
Reading this book was a relief, as lately I'd had a hard time getting into any book. I love the feeling of getting so wrapped up in a story that things like sleeping and eating seem less important. But then there's also that feeling when the book is over. A kind of elation, but also the let down. The world of that book is closed now, though in a way it's still alive inside you. If the book was really good, you go over parts of it again and again in your mind. The characters are vivid.
I liked many things about this book: the narrator's voice (distinctive and clear, but unobtrusive), the plot (a mystery, but really a family mystery about characters and relationships between them), the structure (divided into sections, "Beginnings," "Middles," and "Ends"), and many of the little details (the narrator is a biographer who has written an article on a certain set of twins, her father owns a rare book shop), the writing. The book has some beautiful sentences which are heavy on insight into the human character. But I didn't mind that.
And it has closure, and a somewhat happy ending. No loose threads to annoy the mind.
I was going over my list of books read this year, and I think this is definitely one of my favorites. My mom has a five star rating system, and she hardly ever gives anything five stars. She's a librarian, so she's read a lot and has many books to compare against one another.
But this was a five star book, definitely.
Next on my bedside table: The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. I've heard great things about her writing. One friend (from the book group) said she couldn't put it down. She also said her mother called her and told her she had just finished it and, when she hung up from talking with her daughter, was going to read it again. I look forward to it.
Winter (especially vacation) is the time for reading, especially reading a book a day. Okay, maybe every three or four days. Or five, depending on how much movie watching is taking place.

Melancholiday

I love most holidays, I do, especially ones that primarily focus on food. This is why, in some ways, I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas. Except for the fact that I usually see my family at Christmas and only sometimes see my Dad at Thanksgiving, but not always. But this year, I didn't see my family for any of the winter holidays. I did see my Mom and ErinAlice at Spring Break. And we went to Idaho to see my Dad for Memorial Day.
In spite of all that, I find myself somewhat melancholy this 4th. I'm not a big lover of the fourth, and I don't love the fireworks (especially this year, as I anticipate a Gus freak out), but I find myself a little sad. Maybe it's because last year we got to spend it with Otterbutt and ThirtyOne Flavors and children. (Son was talking about all the fireworks he did last year with "Camme"). Maybe it's because we weren't invited to any barbecues. Maybe it's because I didn't get it together enough to make either potato salad OR any kind of pie.
But really I think it's because I think of the fourth as a holiday that most people spend with their families. And we spent most of it inside trying to stay cool. I did watch some Wimbledon (a family tradition), and we did make some hamburgers with corn and potatoes (everything cooked on the grill, of course).
Maybe it's because I feel somewhat isolated and like a shut-in. I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself, but we don't really have a "group" of friends that we hang out with all the time and would, naturally, spend the Fourth with. We do have friends, but they are all from different groups (cliques?), not really forming a coherent whole. We don't really have people over (except sometimes we do). We don't really go out for drinks with certain people or go to bars (much) or etc, etc, etc.
I guess our social isolation is partly an effect of being a parent (babysitter? What babysitter? Ours is in France). And it's partly an effect of being writers who are trying to write this summer. We haven't been on the phone inviting people over. But partly, I think, it's an effect of the environment where we live. Lots of people here have lived here for a long time and have lots of friends that they have had forever. OR they spend holidays with their families.
I felt this way when I lived in Seattle too. But there, perhaps because I was single and very social, I made friends with other people who had recently moved to Seattle. Once, at a party, I made friends with a whole group of people from Ohio because they were in the kitchen talking and I thought they said "Idaho." I sat on the lap of one of these people, a man named Wheat (not kidding!), in a van on the way home. But that's a story for another post.
I also made friends with a woman who was a customer of mine at Starbucks because she went to College of Idaho. And she was good friends with the only person I knew who went there.
Maybe I just need to start an "I'm from Idaho or a state that sounds like Idaho" club. Or a "we used to have friends but then we had a kid" club. Or "My family's not here, want to have a barbecue?" club. Or "I like to drink pre-made margaritas" club.
I could go on like this for hours.