books

It’s Monday

Except for about ten or fifteen minutes this morning, when my subway train was stuck on the platform while someone in another car, apparently, received medical assistance, today was pretty much just an ordinary Monday. And to think, if I’d risked squeezing on to the over-crowded train that had pulled in five minutes earlier, I probably even had this much to report.

I spent the day mostly collating reviewer reports, contacting potential reviewers for other book projects, and combing the internet for syllabi and course listings and enrollments that might match the kind of instructors I have in mind.

And I did most of it while enjoying the audiobook of Stephen King’s It. It’s been years since I read the novel — which clocks in, across several audio files, at about 45 hours — but I had credits from Audible and wanted to revisit the book. So far, I’m really enjoying it, particularly actor Steven Weber’s reading. It’s not King’s most tightly plotted book by any means, but it’s maybe one of his best, and scariest, and it’s one that has some genuinely interesting things to say about childhood and fear. King reportedly wrote of the book later in a letter, “Never write anything bigger than your own head.” Which I’ve always liked to take both literally and figuratively, though perhaps also as advice not worth heeding.

Separated by a common language

Today wasn’t too bad for a Thursday, even if I do feel like I may be getting something like a sore throat again.

Meanwhile, I finally finished reading China Miéville’s novel Embassytown. I’m usually a big fan of his work, but maybe he was due for a disappointment. It’s been nominated for all kinds of awards, but…well, here’s what I wrote over on Goodreads:

Disappointing, which is not an adjective I’m used to applying to Miéville’s novels. This one is full of intriguing (if not always thoroughly realized or convincing) ideas about language, but ultimately the book feels like a short story or novella masquerading as a novel. There’s a rich sfnal universe lurking in the corners here, other worlds and governments and alien cultures briefly glimpsed, but here a lot of it feels like window-dressing, or like padding, or like it’s there just because Miéville is interested in telling other stories set on different planets in the same universe. The book isn’t actively bad, but I never expected it to be genuinely boring.

Friday

No telecommuting in my pajamas, no scavenger hunts across midtown Manhattan, not even a single meeting to break up the afternoon. I did get this ill-fitting and not exactly stylish hat today, when I agreed to be one of the male searchers for the floor — the folks who, in case of a fire or other emergency, make sure the conference rooms and bathrooms are emptied of people who should be evacuating. But that’s about it.

I did finally finish re-reading Watership Down, though. I’m not at all surprised to re-discover that it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and lovely book. (Not to spoil anything, but “Silflay hraka u embleer rah” may be the greatest insult I’ve ever read.)

Wednesday

I went back to the office today, but it was colder and overcast, turning to rain by the evening, so it’s probably all for the best. I wouldn’t have spent much of today out in the backyard.

The official announcement about my new position at work, which has been tied up for a couple of reasons even though I’ve ostensibly had the new job for over a month, went out finally by e-mail today. It’s weird to be praised for my “calm and affable nature,” but it is nice to be officially welcomed into the new group. (That affable calm thing, though? It’s all an act.)

Today was a day of meetings, or at least two meetings, sandwiched around a brown bag lunch. Our speaker was Tere Stouffer, best know as the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World of Harry Potter. She detailed her experience writing that book, which J.K. Rowling has cited as the good kind of scholarly guide to her wizarding world, and in publishing in general. And there were free sandwiches for lunch, so I’m not going to complain.

And that was my Wednesday.

Thursday

I think I might be allergic to Thursdays. I think I might have said this before, and not just earlier today on Twitter.

It was a pretty normal Thursday, despite the runny nose and perpetual half-sneeze that seemed to dog me all morning.

Meanwhile, I’m re-reading Watership Down and mostly enjoying it, if it’s not quite as delightful as I remember it, from years and years ago. I did run into an odd phrase, which kind of underlined the fact that this was written thirty years ago by a man born in the 1920s. Adams writes that “a rabbit can no more refuse to tell a story than an Irishman can refuse to fight.”

I mean, it’s not quite the casual, friendly racism of Tintin in the Congo, which I also read this year, but it’s hard to see that phrase getting by an editor nowadays.