In which the author goes on about books for longer than she means to, rendering the title incongruous.

I'm sleeping better now that Earl is here. As predicted. I suppose this means I can look forward to sleeping well regularly once I move to Los Angeles? Look right here for the answer -- in about three months.

We had dinner at MacArthur Park last night, which is a fine little restaurant in Palo Alto. I had been hoping for duck, but it (alas!) wasn't on the menu. I had quail instead, and stole large bites of garlic mashed potatoes from Earl, who suffered stoically.

After dinner we dropped by Kepler's and book-shopped. I ended up buying several, including a book of humorous essays by Sandra Tsing Loh titled Depth Takes a Holiday. I also picked up a new YA novel by Caroline Cooney and a book about Calculus. I'm nothing if not diverse.

All my reading lately has been going to Lois McMaster Bujold's books about Miles Vorkosigan. They are as good as advertised, although I'm still looking forward to getting into the more serious books. I finished The Vor Game on Wednesday, and now I'm slowly working through Ethan of Athos, which is quite openly silly.

Also of note: I finished John the Balladeer, which contains all the Silver John stories by Manly Wade Wellman. The stories were quite good, but the style was distinctive enough that after two or three stories I was ready for a change of pace. He's written several (five?) novels about John, which I'll probably try to hunt them down when I've finished my Bujold run. If the style is similar they'll make for good sandwiching between something sf-like.

I'm thinking of assembling a bookbag, containing five or so books which I want to be reading, and sticking it in the trunk of my car. This will make the things on my list convenient, which means they'll get read; as things stand currently I end up reading low-priority things because they happen to be nearby when I need a new book.

(I can just hear you thinking something along the lines of 'How over-organisational. How fretful she is.' But it makes me happy to try to organise things, you see.)

Guess this isn't so short after all.