I hate it when I start a post, and then I can’t finish it for days! The original title of this post was Summer’s Over Tomorrow! My life is too hectic.
Since I live in Florida, the end of summer is definitely something to celebrate. Now maybe, I’ll come out of my hibernation. The weather has actually been much better than usual in recent weeks. We had a brutally hot July and early August, but a tropical storm passed by a few weeks ago, and brought milder weather with it. I’m hoping the hot summer means we have a nice, cold winter. We have not had a cold winter in several years.
And now I can feel autumn in the air! Our Chinese Flame Tree is ready to flame up!
I have not been reading as much as usual. When I do read, it has been nonfiction. The first is Cicero by Anthony Everitt. I have a fascination with Rome and especially Cicero, who Everitt brands as “Rome’s Greatest Politician”, and I’ve had this book for quite a while, now. I’m slogging through the chapters on his early life right now. I’m hoping I’ll see more of the writings by Cicero in the chapters ahead. Also, my boss is being a good mentor and sent me home with a technical book called Design Patterns. It’s actually much more engaging than you might think.
We did not go anywhere this summer, other than two trips to Melbourne. We keep talking about taking a trip to Pensacola, and I hope to make that happen sometime this fall or winter (or spring).
That and writing is most of what I’ve been up to. How about you?
~*~
Got a book in the mail called The Dreaming Hunt by Cindy Dees. It reminded me of a book I read a while ago called, The Sleeping King. I intended to review it, but never did, so I hope to work on that this week. I don’t normally review books anymore, but every once in a while, I make an exception. I do still like to read, and I do still like discussing books, after all!
I’m glad to hear from you, summer or fall. 🙂 I just finished reading
Lost Horizon.' I'd read the Reader's Digest version years ago, but couldn't keep any of the characters strait. Apparently when they condensed, they cut out all the non-plot things like actual characterization. I really enjoyed it this time. The funniest part to me was how casually Shangri-la was mentioned.Oh, why don’t I take you to this nearby place called Shangri-la where you can get warmed up and have a bite to eat?’ (That’s me paraphrasing.) I was sort of expecting… I don’t know, movie music and a strong reaction. Part of me has a hard time accepting that when the book was written, Shangri-la hadn’t entered the collective culture. (Duh.) 🙂I read Lost Horizon about ten years ago, and forgot that was the title until I read your comment. Yes, I recall being surprised at how low-key the actual discovery of Shangri-la was.
I had a similar experience with a condensation of Ivanhoe. My grandmother tried to get me to read it when I was a teenager, but it couldn’t hold my interest. When I tried again years later–after being riveted by The Talisman–I tried again with the full version and couldn’t put it down.
My experience reading a condensation of Les Miserables was just the opposite. The full version is a chore to get through; the abridged version, a page-turner.
It doesn’t surprise me about `Les Mis’. I love the full version, but there are some parts (the history of nunneries while Valjean is fleeing for his life) that, honestly, I don’t know what Victor Hugo was thinking.
Dracula was another classic where my reaction was really informed by cultural osmosis and the characters weren’t. I had the hardest time getting my head around the idea that Johnathan Harker went to Transylvania… to sell Dracula real estate! It sounds like it should be a parody. But the slow reveal ends up being really creepy (once you get past having a real estate salesman fighting to escape evil.) 🙂
Just for fun, I asked my husband if he knew why Harker went to Transylvania, and he did! He said he read it at one point, but most of it, he learned from movies.
For a more modern example, the whole family really loved How to Tame your Dragon, so I read the opening chapters on Amazon to potentially buy the books for my daughter. Totally different voice and mood–did not buy them.
Mostly writing, but I did get to visit a couple of old friends in Connecticut for a few days. otherwise, just work, work, work!