Kicking Off Vacation the Literary Way

Ahh, the joys of vacation. I am SO relaxed. Well, that's relative, I suppose, because I am incredibly uptight, rigid, and anxious to begin with so my "relaxed" state is probably pretty wound up for a normal  person. But still! The relief of not having a million papers due in the next 60 seconds is like heaven.

After all the festivities last week, I had a superbly quiet weekend. I spent Sunday running, cleaning my apartment, folding laundry, napping, talking on the phone with an old friend, and READING. You guys, my reading is actually out of control. I'm on my third book since Thursday. Now that I have my Kindle, I'm a total snob and don't go to the public library anymore and just buy all my books "with 1 click!" on Amazon, so this is getting to be kind of expensive. Maybe I'll ask for for cashmoney for my Book Fund for Christmas.

Books of the week:
—A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout—This was riveting and heartbreaking and tough to read, but I couldn't put it down. Amanda was a twenty-something cocktail waitress/budding journalist with a serious case of wanderlust who got kidnapped by Islamic extremist thugs in Somalia. She and her traveling partner survived over a year in captivity, which included all of the horrible things you can probably imagine. Although marketed as a memoir, the book has a co-author listed...which is probably why it's so well-written! Not that I really care who wrote it, because the story is so powerful.

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—Sycamore Row by John Grisham—Another from my favorite lawyer-turned-legal-thriller-factory. Gosh, this guy is prolific. Fine with me! Like most of his others, this one wasn't particularly life-changing, but it was a perfectly competent page-turner.
—The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer—Gotta admit, this one only made the cut because it has been on a bunch of "Must-Reads of 2013" lists and such. I am about halfway done and I'm not IN LOVE with it, but it's fine. The writing is good, but kind of wordy. It's just so novelly, if that makes sense. I wish she were a little more straightforward and a little less "I'm a writer, WATCH ME WORK."

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All right, duty (aka my book, dinner, sitting on my couch, drinking hot chocolate, and playing Words with Frieds) calls. Peace, everyone.