Books & Birds

Every morning in May, when I wake up, I'm terribly torn. The smart thing to do would be to go outdoors first thing and hike and see all the migrating neo-tropical birds, especially my favorites, the warblers from Central America and northern South America. They come north, NORTH, to breed and to quickly raise their broods before returning to the sub-tropics (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, etc.) in August. (A few leave as early as late July.)

So why can't I tear myself away from a cup of tea and a good book for at least an hour or two? Sheer laziness and a love of coziness on the couch! I get outdoors, all right, but I need my book fix first.

I finished A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow yesterday and today read half of The Writing Circle: A Novel by Corinne Demas, a story depicting the intertwining lives of a writing group. Every member of the group has published in his or her field, which piqued my interest, because I was a member of such a group when I lived in Boston. The book's a page-turner, because the focus keeps shifting among the group's members who are a colorful lot. It's not a great novel, but it's entertaining.

Demas is a professor at the distinguished Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and has received two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships and a Mellon Fellowship. Not for this novel, I hope! She is a poet and has written many children's books and a memoir in addition to this adult novel.

I shouldn't pass judgment halfway through a book. I like it and I'll continue reading it.