July Update: Summer Reading

My summer reading is progressing deliciously. I continue to savor the wonderful Pride and Prejudice, days after the final words were spoken to me by the lovely Rosamund Pike.

I loved that book not just because the audio version was wonderful, but the book itself was amazing. I knew the story from various resources, but each different performance could nowhere nearly match the magic of the original. I suspect I shall re-read this classic more than once in the coming years.

In "News of the Obvious," I think I found another Desert Island Book.

But Darcy Love aside (and I mean Elizabeth), I am enjoying the summer. I stay up much later than I should and choose books based on my whim.

To date, I have finished the following:

1. Ruined
2. The Burning Page
3. Speaking from Among the Bones
4. The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
5. Big Little Lies
6. Anna Karenina
7. The Lies that Bind
8. My Best Everything
9. Forgotten Bones
10. The Handmaid's Tale
11. Pride and Prejudice

I am currently reading:

1. Star Wars: Jedi Academy
2. The Miniaturist
3. The Clockwork Scarab
4. The Fall of the House of Cabal
5. The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Yes, I really am reading five books at a time. I will need to restart (again!) my final Cabal book because it's a little slower-moving than the previous ones. 

Jedi Academy is way too cute to postpone.

I am not sure how much I appreciate steampunk London, especially with all of the steam they use for everything. (At least I understand "steam" punk better.)

I read the first two chapters of #6 as soon as it arrived in the mail, and I can't wait to return.

I do not expect to break any reading records this summer, but I am fine with that. What I want to do is enjoy a few books, and I have been able to do so thus far.

How goes your summer reading?

After Our Daughter's Wedding • Poetry Wednesday

After Our Daughter's Wedding
While the remnants of cake
and half-empty champagne glasses
lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering
in the slanting light, we left the house guests
and drove to Antonelli's pond.
On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.
A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.
"Do you feel like you've given her away?" you asked.
But no, it was that she made it
to here, that she didn't
drown in a well or die
of pneumonia or take the pills.
She wasn't crushed
under the mammoth wheels of a semi
on highway 17, wasn't found
lying in the alley
that night after rehearsal
when I got the time wrong.
It's animal. The egg
not eaten by a weasel. Turtles
crossing the beach, exposed
in the moonlight. And we
have so few to start with.
And that long gestation—
like carrying your soul out in front of you.
All those years of feeding
and watching. The vulnerable hollow
at the back of the neck. Never knowing
what could pick them off—a seagull
swooping down for a clam.
Our most basic imperative:
for them to survive.
And there's never been a moment
we could count on it.


by Ellen Bass 
From Mules of Love
courtesy The Writer's Almanac