The Monday News

It feels like things have gotten too serious around these parts and I wanna loosen it up a bit.  So let's try something new.  According to my book blogger manual, there's something called The Sunday Salon where we are allowed to get all off-topic, but my Sundays are busy and I'm lucky if I get online at all.  So I'm breaking the holy vow of the book blogger and going somewhat off topic on Monday.  Watch out, it's about to get (a wee-bit) crazy up in these parts.

Last Friday I went to my first library book sale in Alton, IL.  I had missed the "preview" day the night before since I had to be home from work in time to watch the kids so my wife could get to a church meeting.  I was kind of bummed that I missed the preview, but since I hadn't been to one of those things before, I didn't know if the $5 fee to get in the door would have been a waste.  So I get there Friday morning and walk into the building and there are TONS of books.  I was kind of blown away, to be honest.  So I start digging and I came up with surprisingly very little.  If you're into the current major contemporary authors - Patterson, Kellerman, Baldacci, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel  - then this is the gold rush.  For me, not so much. I dug around for a long time before I came up with three hardcover Graham Greene novels, a paperback of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland and a hardcover of The World According to Garp by John Irving.  Total spent - $3.  I'll be throwing some pictures of these online in the next day or so.

Saturday was spent with the family and doing work in the yard.  Cut the grass, do the edging, play with the kids.  A good day,

My "gift" for my wife on Mother's Day was to finally get rid of the washer and dryer on the first floor of our house and move the stackable washer/dryer from the basement up to the first floor.  I had other plans for after that was done, but I was so worn out that I couldn't get going and ended up just getting the usual routine stuff done.

My wife and I watched the final episode of Desperate Housewives, the wife's favorite show.  I have watched almost every episode with her and while it's not really my thing, it's time that we spend together.  It was fine - nothing great.

And now here I am. It's Monday.

But let's throw in one more thing, this time something bookish.  Over the weekend I continued reading The Yard by Alex Grecian.  After I finished The Gods of Gotham last month, I wanted to do some more historical fiction.  The Yard takes place in Victorian London, just shortly after the whole Jack the Ripper debacle.  Scotland Yard has only twelve homicide detectives and the caseload is far more than they can handle.  One of the detectives turns up murdered and it's up to new detective Walter Day to solve the case.  It's not quite as good as The Gods of Gotham, but it's still a fun read.  The Yard can be purchased beginning May 29th.