If I have not been writing here as much as I had been usually, mea culpa. I have been writing elsewhere, and creating very silly PowerPoint presentations, and job-hunting. I have also, for the first time in a while, been reading heavily.
Of course, over Christmas I read Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise, which I really can’t recommend enough. My next foray into non-fiction was perhaps less edifying (although it contained a lot of knowledge) but more fun:
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.
Then I was on to fiction: I tore through Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall like I was going to die next week. I had always thought of Thomas More as the man of principle who worked under Henry VIII, and Thomas Cromwell as being a amoral, grasping upstart. I don’t know how accurate it is, but the portrait Mantel paints is gripping and sympathetic, much like the Holbein of Cromwell in the Frith Collection.
Having pretty much finished Wolf Hall, I could not wait to get the next book in the trilogy, Bringing Up the Bodies. So this morning I went to Barnes and Noble to cash in what was left of my B&N gift card from Christmas.
Rats, it’s not out in paperback yet. But I can’t wait until it is… and B&N is having a “Buy 2, get the next free” sale. Oh, my. So I bought the Mantel book, and Life of Pi, which I have been meaning to read ever since I saw the movie, and then spent half an hour agonizing over the third book, finally selecting The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.
I then rounded out my trip with Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, by John Scalzi, which is a collection of posts from his Whatever blog, which if you are not reading, you should be. (Note to self: add Whatever to sidebar.) I have already baptized this with the salad dressing I spilled down the front of my shirt when eating lunch; there is good reason I do not own a Nook or Kindle.
Do you have any reading suggestion? Where should I go next?
Other than the next in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. But it’s not out yet.
