August--The Last Month to Overindulge

August is the final month of my vacation and the last chance to read voraciously, as if nothing else matters. I consumed twelve books in July—a new all-time record for me. All of this goes to show the extremes that a very lazy person can take rest & relaxation. I have luxuriated in every reading minute this summer.


Today was a Crandall Library book day. I returned an enormous bag of books and brought home loads more. I won’t reveal all the books I gathered just yet, but I will say that I came home and immediately started reading the British writer Ben Shephard’s history, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century (2000). I enjoy medical histories, and this is a juicy long one at nearly 500 pages. I decided I’d look it up after reading Elizabeth Speller’s The Return of Captain John Emmett, a post-World-War-I mystery set in 1921, which I strongly recommend. I'm also reading another of Ben Shephard's histories; his most recent title, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of World War II (2010)) about the millions of refugees all across the European continent desperately searching for a home.

At the library book sale last Friday night and Saturday, I bought A Very Long Engagement, by the French author Sebastien Japrisot, another World War I novel. And today I picked up the first Maisie Dobbs mystery, entitled Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, which deals with matters left unsettled after World War I.

And as any one of you could have predicted, I went way overboard at the book sale. I couldn’t let four P.D. James hardcovers in excellent condition go to the dump, could I, even though I have already read three of the four? I know I’ll want to read them all again because I adored each one! But where on earth do I put them? Obviously I need to do lots more book weeding. Oh, the pain of it!