Think of me as an oppositional adolescent with ADHD. As much as I love to read, I am a horrible book group member. Even if the "assigned" reading is a book I have suggested, I rarely, as an adult, read "assigned" reading. I do, often, read the assigned reading given my children.

This is all to let you know that I did not read the book I cited and "assigned" myself last week. Instead, I read How It All Began by Penelope Lively and A Mercy by Toni Morrison. I appreciated both of them, but they now need new homes!

How It All Began has a plot-line that feels a bit contrived, but Lively, like many British writers, keeps it more high-brow than low. Her characters are beautifully and fully developed, and her wit and literacy shine through.

In A Mercy, Morrison creates a gripping narrative with complex characters, a vivid landscape, and an interesting peer into early American history. I do not know she achieves this in only 167 pages.

I am also re-dipping into one one of my all-time favourites, (even if it is against my rules) Angela's Ashes. I loved the recent The Boy Kings of Texas, a finalist in non-fiction for the National Book Award. It evoked Angela's Ashes for me and now that I am re-reading AA, I really see the parallels.
I once watched an interview with Frank McCourt on CSPAN. He was asked how he could find humour in the abject poverty and neglect in which he was reared. He responded something like this: extreme poverty is absurd, thus it is funny.

I will be drastically down-sizing soon. I am divorced, and my youngest daughter is a high school senior. So I am on a purging binge to get ready for a move to smaller quarters.
Next to family, friends, and work, my books are my life. I can spend whole weekends on the sofa, reading.
I have sold books, given books away, gifted folks with the perfect books; I have begun the culling process. I have many books (self-help, anyone?) that I have no trouble parting with. But, I still have a substantial collection that must go.
To begin, I plan to read  the ones I purchased eagerly and immediately after publication but never got around to reading. Bibliophile that I am, I also bring home stacks from the library, and those are usually read first.

The first to be read...finally...is Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. Then it will fly fly fly away to a happy new home. Readers, where should it go?