holiday reading

One thing I enjoy about spending the holidays away from home is knowing that, if I open the diary app on the phone, instead of the usual jumble of reminders and appointments, I see a whole week of NOTHING!

Yet to the cellmate, that idea's a terrifying vision of hell. No people, no distractions.

I've been reading books from the shelves in the mother outlaw's house:

My first Alexander McCall Smith - gentle but meandering, only interesting for all the references to Embra. I won't read any more.

Tear His Head Off His Shoulders by Nell Dunn. This is more like it. The friendship between two middle aged women. Riveting and real. And raunchy, especially when you remember it was written nearly forty years ago. Sexual desire from a woman's point of view. Hot! And there's an impromptu Gestalt session in the middle of it. What a writer! My favorite book in a long time.

A Life Like Other People's. Alan Bennett's memoir about his parents, especially his mother's mental illness. I prefer his fiction.

Now I'm just starting The Weekend, by the Bavarian guy who wrote The Reader.

There's a dearth of computer manuals in the mother outlaw's house, but at least I've loaded a 700-page programming textbook on the iPad, which I have actually enjoyed dipping into, in preparation for next year's work.

Santa brought me nearly nothing, which is appropriate as one gets older. I wish you guys the same, just good health.