Well, having installed a site meter for this page, I now feel compelled to post things with some regularity, and that, of course, means reading something of substance. Also, I suppose, bringing my brain to think about what I'm reading. Odious asked me the other day what topic I've been thinking about lately, and I was ashamed to say nothing, which is unfortunately true. I keep myself awake at night thinking about things like how to address the envelopes for the wedding invitations, and what to include on the wedding registry--it's very sad, and becoming obsessive. However, I think I'm doing well with not talking about it constantly with my friends, so I will try to do the same here.

I'm in the middle of a couple of books that will be worth discussing when I finish them, but until then I'd like to recommend Nick Bantock's The Forgetting Room. I'd read the Griffin and Sabine trilogy years ago, and loved it far more for the guilty pleasure of reading someone else's mail than for the story itself, although the artwork is fascinating. Then I came across one of the continuations to the trilogy during a recent library visit, and found that Bantock had written several other unrelated books. The Forgetting Room is a simple story, which is a little disappointing since it is set up as a quirky mystery, but the process he goes through of creating a painting is interesting and curious, and the evocation of a Spanish village is particularly good.