Tiny Auto Mechanic

Yesterday morning, my car wouldn’t start… the battery appeared to be low.

But Scout was not having any of that explanation.  She announced, after casting a keen eye over the vehicle, that the problem was the tires were stuck in the mud and all the air had been pulled out of them.  Furthermore, if she were to stick her Nintendo DS into the engine compartment, that would probably fix it.  Also, try honking the horn.

I expect her diagnostic bill to come to somewhere around $750.

Book Log – Songbook

Songbook by Nick Hornby

With this work, I have completed my reading of the Non-Fiction and Fiction oeuvre of available Nick Hornby… or have I?

According to Wikipedia, there’s something called Contemporary American Fiction he wrote in 1992.  No real info about what it is.  Hmm.  And there’s some short stories and edited anthologies I haven’t bothered with.  And I gave up on Fever Pitch… I’m not going back, because I simply don’t care about football/soccer that much.

And actually, that’s why I haven’t read Songbook until now.  I was afraid of another Fever Pitch, except about music.  And I don’t care about music either, to own the truth.

Which is not to say I don’t enjoy watching and playing soccer, or listening to music.   I just don’t burn a lot of energy thinking about it.

But it is Nick Hornby, and the passion and wit he brings to talking about books in his Believer column is present here, to the extent that I almost, for a moment or two, was interested in checking out some of the music he’s talking about.  The feeling still comes and goes a bit.  Hopefully, it will pass, because I don’t need to see funds desperately needed to buy books get funneled into mp3s.

 

 

Book Log – Letters from the Age of Reason

Letters from the Age of Reason by Nora Hague

I’m not sure how this book ended up in our house.  I think Stacey got it as a gift several years ago.  It’s been sitting on the To Be Read shelf for longer than I can remember (though, since it was written in 2002, that’s our earlier limit).

I picked it up a year or two ago, I think for lack of anything better to read on hand.  I’ve been picking it up on and off since then.

This is another historical fiction from the era of slavery (set just before and during the Civil War), and like The Unknown World, it’s not my typical fare.  But it’s a well written first novel, and like Jane Austen’s first novel, it is composed entirely of letters.  The book tackles the oddity of relationships between slaves, owners, and those with uncomfortably mixed ancestry.

I like to look up authors I’m unfamiliar with, but Nora Hague hasn’t got much info out there.  A few reviews of this book, no wikipedia page, and a Facebook page with the french edition of this book as the profile picture.  Her author note at the back of the book says she’s working on her second novel… it must be a long one.