I like words. I like words and trees and streetlamps in the rain at night and apparently I love apples. I digress.
In the realm of words, my current favorite author is Alexander McCall Smith. I find him charming in a quaint way, without the slightly patronizing connotation that often comes with calling something quaint.
I finished the Isabel Dalhousie series (starting with The Sunday Philosophy Book Club) and am anxiously awaiting further installments.
I recently read the first in his series called Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Subtle. Hilarious. Charming. The book takes place in Europe, based in Germany (how apt) and ends in Venice. In Venice there was a 14 year old boy who kept giving our hero odd looks. Near the end of the portion on Venice Dr. McCall makes a quiet reference to Thomas Mann. I don’t know who Thomas Mann is so I looked it up. And the information made Dr. Smith’s book all the more endearing.
I’m so glad there are more books in the series. It saves me the trouble of having to go look for new things to read for a couple more weeks. Reading can be an expensive habit. I go through these books so quickly.
I also spent a while reading George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series but I’m passive-aggressively mad at him because I really want that last book to have been written. Last year.
In other news, I’m a member of a couple of different writing sites including Helium and Suite101 (of which I prefer the feel of Helium somewhat more).
I’ll post some of my writing here, especially short stories or excerpts from unwritten tales. I’m working on a couple of longer stories (and even a nonfiction technical handbook). Mostly I’m trying to challenge myself to write longer stories. This attention span of mine can really… oh wow. something shiny-