Voracious Readers Club

So...after more work on Saturday on the Ethiopian girls project and things around the house, I was basically worn out. Jim and I spent Sunday resting and recuperating and I finished reading "Girls of Tender Age" by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (http://www.powells.com/review/2006_02_03.html). Smith's memoir of growing up in blue collar Hartford, Conn., in the 50's with the special effects of having an autistic brother and at the age of 10, one of her classmates murdered in her neighborhood by a serial pedophile was fascinating and sad. Of course.

Yesterday I finished reading and reread several poems from "The Best American Poetry, 2005." Some favorites are Galway Kinnell's "Shelley," Tony Hoagland's "In a Quiet Town by the Sea," and Shanna Compton's "To Jacques Pepin." It's a great collection of poems, for sure. I've tried and tried to get into "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" by the latest literary phenom Yiyun Li, but her stories must go right over my head or something because I only sort of get them and I only sort of care. I'm sure the fault is mine. Maybe she's too quiet or something. Anyhow, I'll be taking it back to the library with only half the stories read.

I do have waiting for me, however, "The Great Stink" by Clare Clark (http://www.crossness.org.uk/sites/20020715PJK/wc.htm) about "corruption and murder beneath the streets of Victorian London" when they were putting in the sanitation system. How could I resist, especially since it was on a list of recommended books the W. Post put out a few weeks ago.