That’s right, I’m officially employed, so I’m officially one of those evil immigrants who comes into Britain and takes jobs away from hard-working put-upon English people. Now that my dissertation is handed in (thank god), this means two things: I have a source of income, and I spend half my day commuting. I’ve started taking the bus because it’s cheaper than the train, so my commute, from my house to my job, officially takes two hours. Which is ridiculous. A quarter of my waking day is spent on buses.
Of course, my job also means that I get to handle books. Lots of them. Old books. Books that are fifty, a hundred, TWO HUNDRED years old. It’s awesome. Except for the part where it’s a bit tedious. At some point in the near future I will post about the weird, funny, and disturbing things I run across, like the book of limericks that featured a naked man on the front with a huge flower growing up between his legs. They were THOSE kind of limericks.
One of the (few) perks is that I get to take home the books that we throw out. I have a growing stack next to my desk, and I now officially own three different versions of Brideshead Revisited. I’m not letting myself take anything else home until after I move house.
The quasi-direct result of this is that I’m starting to read again (usually on aforementioned bus). Yesterday was Hannibal Rising, the hilariously ridiculous origin story of the world’s most urbane mass murderer, Hannibal Lecter. Thomas Harris’s books are a guilty pleasure of mine. They’re ridiculous, but this one was entertaining enough to keep me up until midnight finishing it. I’ve read Hannibal several times. I think I was the only person who actually liked the (again, ridiculous) ending.
Now it’s Vintage Wodehouse, which has made me laugh out loud several times. Mostly the joke about how it’s a Russian sport to try to assassinate Lenin with revolvers.
And reading always takes me to writing. I haven’t written anything in a while that wasn’t related to my dissertation, and I feel the need to… something that rhymes with ‘need.’ The need to screed? Anyway. Once I’ve recovered from this exhausting week, I’m going to get back on the wagon and work on a couple of things I have sitting around. It’s amazing how taking time away from a piece can clarify things.
Tabitha's Island 