Happy August to You!

Well, it's been awhile...

Good news: Time Warner came out Saturday and fixed our cable and Internet woes...for the time being.

Bad news (for Time Warner): I still hate you.

I had been unable to post here at home for roughly two weeks, and I was out of town for about half a week, attending an interpreting conference, hence the dry spell.

Not having Internet and cable basically means that I read about fifteen books in the last two weeks. I've already surpassed my book totals for 2006 and 2007, and I'm two away from equaling my total books read for 2005 (a nice even 60). The downside to all this reading is that sometimes I will pick up a book that I've read even just a year or two ago and find that I've no idea what happened as far as plot and characters go. Although, if the book was any good, I usually have a good idea of the plotline, even years later. Well, maybe I shouldn't say if the book was any good, because there are some pretty lousy books that have been seared into my memory. Funny how that works, I can't remember a blessed thing from Wuthering Heights, but I do remember parts of Brave New World, and I can't say that I liked either book.

Memory is funny...the whole reason I started writing down all the books I've read is because of something my brother said to me once. We were talking about all of the Agatha Christie mysteries I'd read and he wanted to know exactly how many I'd read (or something like that) and I told him that I wasn't sure because sometimes the titles are different for the British editions than they are for the American ones, or newer editions sometimes have different titles, etc. Also, I'd read so many of them that sometimes I would pick one up and start reading it, only to find that I had already read it. He suggested writing down all of the ones I'd read (he's a clever one!) and thus the lists of books I've read was born. Usually, though, if I've already read such and such Agatha Christie, I can go ahead and read it again, because I've forgotten whodunit. Plus, I find that I appreciate her books more now that I'm older (I started reading her books in fifth grade and a lot of that British stuff just went over my head). I remember how a few of them turn out, but for the most part I can still enjoy the story.