I have a stack of magazines that I have been toting from my nightstand to the car and back to my nightstand with an alarming regularity. Oprah, Parents, Parenting, Glamour, Real Simple, the J.Crew Holiday Catalog: they’re all stuffed into a Whole Foods Tote bag that goes down the stairs, out the door, into the car in the morning. Then, at the end of the day, out of the car, in the door and up the stairs. I’ve got 30 minutes while the girls are in swimming lessons. I’ve got 45 minutes while the girls are at tutoring. I’ve got a handful of minutes in various carpool lines. Have a I cracked a spine on any of the mags? Nope. I keep thinking that in the midst of all of the to-ing and fro-ing that goes on, I’ll have some time to leaf through the glossy pages and create inane wish-lists of celebrity endorsed product. It hasn’t happened.
The public library has been blowing up my phone lately because several books that I on on hold are now available. The messages come in from some unknown number and the urgency in the robotic voice makes me feel like I have to drop everything to book it over to the library so that my item doesn’t evaporate back into the stacks. “We will hold your item for three business days,” the robotic librarian tells me. What I hear, however, sounds like this, “Three days, sucka! We ain’t playin’, so carry your a-double on over here before I like to give this book to someone else! I ain’t gonna call you again! *click*. I’ve already waited several weeks for the book; I really don’t want to miss this window of availability and then end up at the end of the line again. And wouldn’t you know, all of my books came in at once. I sped on over to the library, tossing an armful of the girls’ books into the maw of the book return, like an offering to an obscure literary pagan god. Of the titles I picked up, I’ve burned through about three in ten days.
During my weekly sojourn to Target, I picked up another book that I’ve been waiting to read. I just couldn’t outlast my position in the queue for “The Hunger Games”. Everything else that I’ve been reading, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children“, “The Uncoupling“, “The Recipe Club,” all of these titles were just place holders for this book that I have heard so much about. Like Harry Potter and the Twilight series before it, I had heard chapter and verse (no pun intended) about how great this story is and how I just had to get my hands on a copy, immediately. My no commitment book club read it, but the library copy I reserved never materialized in time. If you’ve read it, please let me know. And yes, I know there’s a movie adaptation coming out soon with Lenny Kravitz (*swoon*) in one of the roles. SN: for that alone, this book deserves a read.
Ideally, I’d be having a lie in with my book today, but responsibilities call. I will, however, be swapping the tote of magazines for the comparatively compact novel. Let the games begin.
