Tropical Storm Irene: Today we were battered all day by rain, somewhere in the vicinity of eight inches. This amount is not so extraordinary overall, but when it falls during a period of about 8 hours, it is impossible for the ground to absorb. The winds were gusting into the 50s, though that often happens during blizzards and nor'easters. It's mainly the trees that we worry about. When the ground is saturated, wind tends to knock them over. Some of the roads in our area are closed to flash flooding, I've heard. We have no electricity as we expected. Yet for some reason, our Frontier internet is up! I'll take advantage of that for as long as I can.

BOOKS! I was terribly distracted today, but I devoured quite a number of children's picture books. That was fun. I planned more of my Children's Lit course, too.

Today I read The Storm of War, as discussed below. And I downloaded Rules of Civility by Amor Towles onto my Nook--a book everyone is talking about enthusiastically.

Yesterday I finished Call Me Princess by the Danish crime writer Sara Blaedel. All the time I was reading, I never wanted to give it up, but I think that there are a great many more deserving crime fiction reads around. I hear Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir has a new crime novel available. There are so many excellent crime writers! And not enough time to read them, mostly because I enjoy reading lots of non-crime fiction and nonfiction.

It's a problem of too many books, really.

Pardon a dumb post. The excessive water vapor in the air has flooded my cerebrum.