Reading List

On Saturday, I had to return a book to the Moore Public Library and while I was there I thought I'd see which of the books on my reading list they had available. (I keep sort of a mental list and I'd written one out based on the recommendations of Nick Hornby in his book of essays, Housekeeping vs The Dirt.) Turns out, they had all of them. Or nearly all of them, with the one book not available turning out to be no real loss.

That's the difference between the Moore Public Library and the Oklahoma City Public Library. While Moore's collection is good enough, Oklahoma City's is more extensive, but it seems no matter which branch I go to in Oklahoma City, the book I want is always at another branch, and so I have to reserve it and wait for notification that it's arrived and then go get it. With Moore, either they have it or they don't and that's that. Refreshing, in a way.

I brought home a pile of books with the intent of reading every single one of them but the problem with checking out books from the library - aside from the fact it's a little queasy-inducing to flip through pages countless others have fingered - is that if a book doesn't capture me in its first few pages, I cruelly toss it aside. I've already done that with Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping - I gave her the first chapter, 28 pages, to make her sale, and though it's beautifully written, it's pace is glacier-like.

Next up: Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. Her anti-Republican and Bush-Derangement Syndrome grates on my nerves and I'm ready to give it the heave-ho but I see she was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma so I'm willing to give her a chance. But don't push me.