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The Sunday Salon

A slightly chilly Sunday here; the temperature is down in the 40s, though it’s been up in the 60s here recently and it’s likely to stay that way in the near future. It’s kind of frustrating; all I want to do is pull out a warm, chunky sweater to wear, and I can’t do that! This weekend my sister and her boyfriend are in town; right now they’re down in Center City watching a friend race in the Philadelphia Marathon.

This past week has been a slightly busier week than normal; every Thursday we had a weekly meeting in my department where the fellows go over their research projects; this week, we held the meeting at our office in Egg Harbor Township, NJ, which is about a hour’s drive from Philly. The meeting, which started at 3, went until about 6:30; and then the rest of my coworkers wanted to go to Atlantic City to gamble. Since I had to go meet my parents and sister back in Center City, my boss gave me a ride to the train station. The long of the short of it was that I was so completely exhausted on Thursday night that it’s been good to just crash at home this weekend. Luckily with the upcoming holiday, we’ve got a shorter week coming up here, so it’ll be nice to have the break.

I’ve been reading some chunksters recently; I finished an ARC of The King’s Daughter, by Christie Dickason (not really a chunkster, but a long book nonetheless) for LTER, and then I read The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton. Kate Morton is one of the few authors I’ll buy in hardback, new, because I just love her writing. This one is no exception; it’s a big, thick, gothic-style novel that’s similar in tone to her previous two books.

My coworker introduced me to a secondhand bookstore near our office, and on Monday during my lunch break I found (and took home, haha) the three Barbara Pym novels I don’t own. Her books are so hard to find that when I find them, it’s always like finding treasure. So now I’m reading Some Tame Gazelle, Pym’s first novel, about two middle-aged spinsters in a country village. Pym has such a wicked sense of humor that reading one of her books is always a treat. I don’t know what I’ll do when I finish reading all of her books for the first time; reread?

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Comments

Joanne said…
I haven't heard of Barbara Pym...I'll have to look into her books. I discovered Susanna Kearsley and Barbara Erskine this year and their books are not readily available here in the US, so I know how you feel when you find those elusive used book treasures.
November 21, 2010 at 11:15 AM
Sarah at SmallWorld said…
Oooh--I'm adding the Kate Morton to my TBR list. I didn't know about this one.
November 21, 2010 at 4:34 PM
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