Post-Turkey Coma

So... much... food...I've spent the majority of the holiday weekend so far fighting with relatives and reading like my life depends on it. This literary mania is frustrating because I have many other things that people want me to do, and they KEEP INTERRUPTING MY BOOK HAPPY. Bastards. * Girl With A Pearl Earring was surprisingly good. I really expected it to be similar to The Other Boleyn Girl (which I must admit I haven't read, so don't know anything about, although the movie was so ridiculous it almost makes me want to read the book), but it was much more about the time period and the art, and I enjoyed it. * The Graveyard Book made me cry, which is always a good sign. It may be my favorite Neil Gaiman book, even if it did have vampires and werewolves. It's a kid's book, but like the best children's books, it's really not.I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of reading 100 books in 2008. I don't know why. I like nice, round numbers. I do know that, despite the fact that I read ridiculously fast without speed reading, and that my social life is in critical condition because everyone is so busy, and that I'm mostly still unemployed, I probably won't make it to 100 books this year unless I 'cheat' and read all the picture books I own that were given to me when I worked at the publishing house. And while I did read comics this year, intentionally reading short books solely to reach a quota strikes me as morally dishonest, and a wee bit sad. So I'm not doing that. I'm following my standard To Be Read Pile behavior: grab the first one off the nearest pile, and start reading. If it doesn't hold my interest for whatever reading, throw it to the back of the pile and grab another.I have, seriously, a shitload of books. My LibraryThing account (which you should all have, because it's the BEST THING ever, and Joe Hill once wrote me a comment because of it) says I own 886 books, and I know for a fact I have a few floating around that have yet to be catalogued (and, horrifyingly, a few that have been lost to time and friends who don't understand my psychotic book obsession). Which is a lot. (It also says I haven't read 387 books in my collection, and can't identify one of the Hellboy comics I own, proving once again that nothing is perfect, although LT is as close as anything on the forsaken internet can ever hope to get.)And right now, some are upstairs in my old room, jammed into bookshelves too small to contain them, and some are down here, in a dozen piles ten high, threatening to crush me under knowledge. And I want more. I'm sure this is some sort of compulsion, and I have a terminal illness that cannot be cured by books, and I'll die in a house made entirely of books that will erupt into flames when I try to light a cigarette.I like books. What can I say? Perfect shopping spree? Going to Shakespeare & Co (in France - hey, it's a fantasy) followed by Anthropologie, Sephora, Zara, and all those designer boutiques I'm not allowed in now because the workers can smell the fact that I'm not obscenely wealthy.And so much for coherency. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and that your relatives weren't too infuriating, and that the food was good and didn't give you indigestion, and that the clean-up was quick and easy. Because none of that was true for me, and there is no dignity in wanting to bitch slap a senile, 83-year-old woman. - LV

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