Reading jag

I have been on a marathon reading jag recently. I don't know why but at times reading seems to go smoothly and I just sail through books of all kinds.

I recently picked up several paperback books at our neighborhood library's $6 bag o'books sale. All the books you can stuff into a plastic grocery bag for just $6. What a bargain, eh?

In my bag I included an old classic that I had never read. "The Grapes Of Wrath". What the heck, I thought, even if I don't read it I had room in my bag.

The next book was "Revenge of a Middle Aged Woman" by Elizabeth Buchan.

Then there was "A Man In Full" by Tom Wolfe" which I had read a few years back but had forgotten most of the story.

The next book was also a paperback, "Durable Goods" by Elizabeth Berg. Another book, a hardback, was "The Commoner" a fictional inside look at lives of the last two Japanese women, both commoners themselves, who married successive crown princes of Japan and the hardships they both faced in adjusting to the cloistered life.

I included a few clunkers which I could soon see I would not enjoy. But later I will regift them to our library and they can be resold.

I was blown away by John Steinbeck's "Grapes Of Wrath" The story of the Joad family who were displaced from their sharecropper farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl of the 1930's. As they made their way by truck with all their worldly possessions they encountered misfortunes. one after the other. But the hope of work and a better life on some golden farm in California kept them going.

From Amazon

"What can I say about the Joads that has not already been said in the past sixty-odd years? How could I have missed knowing them earlier? I read this story, with its "country speech" and "country ways" and wanted to take them all in. I wanted to comfort them all"

and "Revenge of A Middle Aged Woman"

"Living wisely is the best revenge for a London book review editor who loses both husband and job to her conniving assistant in this sophisticated and satisfying novel. Rose Lloyd is in her late 40s and has been happily married for 25 years when Minty, her "glossy free-ranging" young assistant, brusquely shoulders her aside. Husband Nathan, who is a deputy editor at the same newspaper, is decent and remorseful, but determined to start a new life, and Rose must pick up the pieces-which she does with commendable energy and resolve"

"Durable Goods"

"Durable Good's" is Elizabeth Bergs first book(she has since written many more) which is amazing when you read the stellar quality of this effort. Katie, a tender, blossoming 12 year old, steals your heart at first page and never let's go. Berg writes effectively in choppy paragraphs the feelings, the observations, the problems, the joys, the experiences of our Katie"

A Man In Full"

"The "man in full" of the title (the phrase comes from an old song) is Charlie Croker, a good-ole-boy real-estate developer in Atlanta whose sprawling South Georgia plantation, massive mansion in the best part of town, half-empty skyscraper tower named after himself, horde of servants, fleet of jets and free-spending trophy second wife have left him terribly vulnerable to bankers deciding the party's over."

What are you reading?

Slugs

Continuing with the theme of unusual uses for alcohol:

We had slugs that ate our hostas a few years back. At that time I was frequenting a current events chat on Yahoo. I commented about the slugs and an avid gardener from the UK gave me a plan to rid the hosta bed of slugs.

Cut a Coke can in half. Fill the half with beer. Prop the can up in a small hole in the hosta bed. The slugs crawl up to drink the beer and they get drunk and cannot crawl out. ;)

Cheers

(use cheap beer)

I wonder what other off beat uses of alcohol there are?

Addendum

I will NOT need fireworks tomorrow on the fourth of July. All I need do is open the fridge and take out the gin and raisins concoction, take a hearty tablespoon full and stand back as the fireworks go off in my mouth. "Stars and Stripes Forever" resonates behind my eyeballs.

Potent is hardly the word for it. the longer the mixture sits, the heartier it gets.

OLE!!!!!

And Happy July 4 to y'all.