Random thoughts about books and reading…

I currently have 36 books checked out of the library.  The maximum that a patron can check out at any one time is 50, so I am well over halfway to the max.  The pile is so tall that the North Carolina whelk shell that lives on top of my library checkouts is just barely clearing the underside of the kitchen cabinet.  Now, just to be clear: this is not all my doing.  The kids have contributed to the excessive library stack.  But – still.  Ridiculous.  (N.B. This is no longer true, as of the date of publication of this post.  It’s way down now.  But it was true when I started the post, and is still ridiculous.)

It’s funny how a book that you thought was just a good time can surprise you with a message.  A few weeks after finishing Time’s Convert, I was driving along on the highway (taking the kids to the Udvar-Hazy Center to meet up with a school friend) and the thought popped into my head that Time’s Convert had a lot to do with consent.  A vampire novel could easily slip across an invisible line, but Deborah Harkness’s vampires are very concerned with consent.  They don’t always seek it, especially while hunting, but the more modern vampires in particular are very uncomfortable with the idea of “feeding” without it.  There is a scene in which Miriam produces a woman to feed Phoebe, and Phoebe finds the whole scene distressing.  She finally mumbles “thank you” and the woman – who is perfectly aware of why she’s there and what Phoebe is supposed to be doing – congratulates Miriam on how well-brought-up her vampire “daughter” is.  And when the vampires actually create a new one of their number, they have a long speech they go through to make sure the human in question knows exactly what they are getting into and is 100% on board.  (It doesn’t always work, because what human actually believes they are about to be made into a vampire?  But they try.)  I found it fascinating that the vampires were worried about consent, and tried to obtain it, and I wish that they always did.  I’m still not sure that Harkness handled the issue as well as I would have liked, but it was just interesting that a book I thought was purely a fun read could have prompted this line of thinking weeks later.

Apparently everyone knows I have a problem?  My BFF, Rebecca, recently urged me (again) to read a book by her favorite author, Susan Fletcher.  She also said: “I was going to loan you my copy, but I decided if I did, you’d never read it.  I figured I’d let you get it from the library instead, and then maybe you’ll actually read it.”  Point taken.  Point taken.  I’m a library junkie.  And I guess everyone knows.

Steve and I watched the adaptation of Good Omens together.  As expected, he loved it.  But he still hasn’t read the book.  I keep pressing it on him and telling him he’d love it (and to be fair, I don’t push books on him unless I’m sure he would really enjoy them; no one is telling him to read Cranford).  He says he’ll get to it after he’s done with his current Patrick Rothfuss doorstopper.  So – next year sometime?  I’m on record as saying I don’t mind being married to a non-reader, because HELLO, more bookshelf space for me.  But still, I want him to read the books I want him to read.  Is that normal?  I’m a complicated lady.