The House of Mirth: Review

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Ecclesiastes 7:4: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

The House of Mirth is a novel of New York society manners. The heroine is Lily Bart an impoverished socialite who lives off a small inheritance and her Aunt Julia’s generosity. She travels the inner circle of the New York elite by being charming and beautiful; something she finds increasingly more difficult the older she gets. There is a price to pay, when living off the rich. Lily has to be lively and entertaining, even when she doesn’t feel up to it.

Lily has had many opportunities to marry and have the life she was "trained" to have. She always seems to throw them away. Her friend Carry says she manages "to be off on a picnic" when opportunity presents itself. The fact is Lily doesn’t really want that life: the loveless lives her friends have. She’s really in love with Lawrence Seldon, a lawyer from a good family, who lives just on the outside of society. He looks down on the lifestyle of these people and feels that Lily shouldn’t really be one of them. Although it’s he that she loves, she can never really let go of the material things she’d miss if she married him.

Lily finds herself, through a bad investment, in the middle of a scandal. Try as she might, she only gets in deeper, mired in the mud with social climbers, adulterers, and false friends. Lily knows that only the richest can come out of it clean. She has to decide what is truly important to her: money or her morals.

This is a re-read for me. I read this last winter and this time around with my book club. I loved the way Wharton writes. It’s rich and descriptive. You can almost feel the silk of Lily’s dress. She’s as good at describing a New York drawing room as she is the worries and thoughts running through Lily’s mind. Wharton is brutally honest and hard on New York society, of which she herself was born into.

I have yet to read more of Edith Wharton, but I’m sure I will in the future.

4/5

Literary Birthdays

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The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. John Steinbeck

Today is John Steinbeck’s 105th birthday, if he were alive. He was born in Salinas, California, of which he wrote about in his novels. He seems to have loved his part of the country but the people in the area turned against him. When he bought a house in Monterey, no one would rent him office space. This dislike was sparked by his work The Grapes of Wrath, in which he criticized landowners. It got so bad he moved his family to New York and said, "This isn't my country anymore. And it won't be until I am dead. It makes me very sad." It makes me sad too. He was so attached to his home. It’s a sin that he felt he couldn’t live there. And now he is celebrated there. The National Steinbeck Center is celebrating his birthday this week. The Big Read is also starting this week (Feb 24-Mar31) People are encouraged to read The Grapes of Wrath, the novel that gave him such trouble.

I remember reading The Pearl in school. That book was so sad. When Oprah was reading East of Eden for the book club, I bought the book for my mom and ended up reading it myself. I’m glad I did. What a beautiful book. There was such a contrast between good and evil: Adam and Cathy. She was a sociopath, if ever there was one. I also loved the history of the area and Steinbeck’s family woven into the story. It was a real labour of love. It’s considered his greatest work and I agree.

Also on this day in 1807, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born. He wrote the epic poem Evangeline, the tragic love story based on the Expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755. Evangeline is separated from her lover and spends the rest of her life searching for him. The story of the expulsion is a real event, though Evangeline is a fictional character. It hasn’t stopped people from erecting statues of her however. I love this part of the poem:

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Paints a pretty picture, doesn’t it?

And Happy Birthday to Susan from A Writer’s Tale (Hope Steinbeck’s quote gives you some encouragement!)

Another Year...

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Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.~Reverend Larry Lorenzoni

That's one way to look at it. The last few years, I wasn't very happy about getting older. This year I'm ok about it. I'm just in a general bad mood about my birthday this year. I think it's not having a house of my own right now. There is nothing to say that the first day of a new year sets the tone for the whole year. Besides, it's a beautiful sunny day outside today. And I get to eat cake and not feel guilty about it.

A few famous people who share my birthday:
Christopher Marlowe (1564)
Victor Hugo (1802)
Not bad. Very literary. I'm going to read Les Miserables one of these days.

Johnny Cash (1932)
William Cody "Buffalo Bill" (1846)
Hmmm... Rebellious.

Erykah Badu (1972)
She's a groovy chick. I'll have a piece of cake for her.

Busy Reading Week

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“My books are very few, but then the world is before me - a library open to all - from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me - in which the meanest and most paltry volume is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve” -Joseph Howe

It's going to be a busy reading week. First, it's Freedom to Read week (Feb 25-Mar3). Stephanie has a good rant, where she airs her views (YEH, Stephanie!). If you'd like to support the cause take The Banned Books Challenge.

It's quite timely considering the whole "scrotum" debate. Read the NY Times article here. I just loved Ms Nilsson's last words: “But you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.” “At least not for children,” she added. Makes me wonder what she's reading. For my part, I'm reading Moll Flanders this month (turns out that way because of book club). Nothing like a story about a prostitute to express my right to read.

Next, it's the start of Canada Reads on Monday on CBC, 11:30 am and 7:30 pm. You can listen online as well. I haven't read this year's books. I plan to read all the selections from every year. So, far I've read The Handmaid's Tale, Life of Pi, The Last Crossing (Winner 2004), Rockbound (Winner 2005). They were all very good, I especially liked Rockbound. I have a few of the others on my shelf.

Comparison Shopping: Used Books

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I’m always looking for a bargain, so these past few weeks, I went looking for the best buys in books. Here are my results:

Thrift Stores:
Value Village, the thrift department store:
Dollars spent: $6
Books bought:
Blue Diary Alice Hoffman (Paperback)
Died Blonde Nancy J Cohen (Paperback)

Salvation Army Thrift Store
Dollars spent: $0.50
Books bought:
Larry’s Party Carol Shields (Hardcover)

I thought my Value Village buys were pricy. They were only paperbacks, but anything originally $5.99 or more is automatically marked $3. There were a lot of books and the store was busy. I know from experience that they do monthly donation pick-ups, so there’s a lot of variety.

At the SA thrift store, there was only a shelf or two and they were ancient and obscure. Considering the prices, nothing over a dollar, anything new probably goes fast. I managed to find a gem: good condition hardcover. I was feeling pretty smug.

Local Used Bookstore:
Dollars spent: $3 (store credit)
Books bought:
Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe (Paperback)

I love the local book store. It’s musty and stinky but it has an atmosphere of love for books. They have 1000's of books of every genre and title, including new local books. The best part of this store: Credit. I’ve taken my old books to them and gotten store credit. The lady told me, "You have beautiful books." Just what a bookaholic likes to hear. The cons: the cataloguing is questionable, not everything is where it should be; the turnover is slow, since we live in a lesser populated area; and they don’t have much of a children’s section.

Library Book Sale (Semi-annual):
Dollars Spent: $11
Books bought:
Unless Carol Shields (Hardcover)
A Complicated Kindness Miriam Toews (Hardcover)
Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood (Paperback)
Alias Grace Margaret Atwood (Paperback)
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee (Paperback)
My Dream of You Nuala O’Faolain (Paperback)

When I arrived at the sale just as it opened, I looked around and thought, "This is serious business." The place was packed but you could hear a pin drop. Everyone was clustered around the tables, heads down, reading titles. You could have been standing next to your Mom and never know it. We were all trying to find the biggest bargains, our favorite authors, or something interesting. We could not be distracted. I had an armload. I didn’t even know what I had, until I found a corner to look them over. I knew I might be crazy, when I found myself on my hands and knees, digging through a box on the floor, close to being stepped on. The selection was great, not just library cast-offs but really well cared-for donations including newer titles. The prices were $3 to $0.25 (for the harlequin-type books). Saturday is the $5 bag sale, but I can’t be there. Darn.

Miscellaneous: Throughout the summer, I’ll hit the yard/garage sales. Sometimes you can find a bargain but it’s hit and miss. I once went to a sale for the SPCA and got books for $0.25. Not bad. The flea markets often have tables and tables of books. They’re not as cheap as they used to be. Most people ask $1-2 nowadays. My library in the town I used to live in had a table of donations for sale: $0.25 for paperbacks, $0.50 for hardcovers. I got 2 hardcover Margaret Atwood (one signed) for $1.00. That was a good deal, although dh complained that libraries are for borrowing books!

So, do any of you have a great bargain story? Or a favorite place you buy your books?

Another Round of Booking Through Thursday

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Today' s Booking Through Thursday

A couple weeks ago, we asked about how you take care of your books, with one of the questions asking whether you write in your books. Well, what about books that are meant to be written in? Like, say, a journal or diary? Do you keep one? Obviously, if you're answering this, you have a blog--do you just let your blog be your journal? Or do you also keep one for private stuff also?

Don't forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments--or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

I'm a notorious list maker. That's not exactly journal writing, more like short-hand journal writing. Little notes to myself, ideas, things I want to remember, that kind of thing. Instead of having loose pieces of paper everywhere, I keep them in journals.

Occasionally, I keep "official" journals. I kept one last year for Simple Abundance gratitude entries. I got bad at keeping it by the end of the year though. The one that I care to keep up with is a pregnancy journal when I was pregnant with my daughter. I kept reports from the doctor, dreams, name ideas and just thoughts on being pregnant. After I delivered her, I wrote about her birth and how much I loved her. I wrote regularly the first year of her life. Now I make an entry on her birthday about how much she's grown.

Since I'm a scrapbooker, I've taken everything I wrote in that journal with pictures and put it in a scrapbook for her. Someday, when she's an independent woman, I'll give it to her. I hope she'll see how much she means to me.

As for my blog, I try to keep that about reading as much as I can. Journals are just too personal to have the whole world read it. That's how I feel anyway.

Shopaholic Ties the Knot: Review

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You might be wondering about my book picks lately, but I really needed a break from all the tragic heroines; there was a lot of them! Sometimes you need to feel a little light headed.

Shopaholic Ties the Knot is the third in the Shopaholic series. The first two are Confessions of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan. In this installment, Becky Bloomwood has just got engaged to Luke, the financier. Becky still can't stop shopping, but that's the least of her worries. Through no fault of her own (yeah right), she has two weddings planned for the same day. One thrown by her dragon lady, soon-to-be-mother-in-law at The Plaza in New York City. It's the wedding of her dreams, or so it seems. The other is in the backyard of Mom and Dad's house in Oxshott. Will she risk the wrath of one or disappoint the other? As if that weren't enough, she has to help her friend Suze have a baby, help break her neighbour into the fashion business, keep Luke from having a nervous breakdown and register for gifts.

Kinsella stays true to her heroine. Becky, by now, should have some sense, but what's the fun of that. Although Becky is still clueless about money, Kinsella realizes that this could get old fast. Instead of elaborate schemes and lies about her finances, Becky uses her skills to keep everyone in the dark about this latest conundrum. You got to hand it to her, that girl is quick on her feet.

Kinsella's still got it. It's a funny book with lots of ridiculous situations and quirky characters. I'm not ashamed to say that I love this series.

February 27th is the release date for (drum roll, please), Shopaholic and Baby.

4/5

Ten Winter Reads

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I caught the Today Show on the weekend. They had a segment called Ten Books to Snuggle up with this Winter. It's a good combination of new releases both serious reading (Sacred Games) and not-so-serious (Because She Can). I was glad to see a new Maeve Binchy (or as my mil calls her, Mavis Bachinsky. lol) I'm a fan of her books.

Died Blonde: A Bad Hair Day Mystery Review

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Disclaimer: This is the sixth in a series. I haven't read any of the previous books. Just to let you know ;)

I bought Died Blonde by Nancy J Cohen at a thrift store because I liked the cover and the title was cute. I have never heard of the author before. I thought it might be a cute story for a winter night.

The premise is Marla owner of Cut 'N Dye salon finds her competitor, Carolyn, murdered in the utility room of the mall they work in. Detective Vail, Marla's boyfriend, asks her to help him with the case because of her ability to get people to talk (I'll get to that). It seems that Carolyn had an endless line-up of people who were willing to whack her. Marla has her work cut out for her. Top of the list is a bitter sister, a shifty lawyer, a flighty psychic and a secretive chiropractor. Could one of them have done it?

First off, I didn't find Marla particularly appealing. She had a very abrupt manner, maybe this was to emphasize how she is a very serious business woman, I don't know. As for her ability to get people to talk, to me it went like this: "Hey you, did you kill that woman?" "No, but please sit and I'll tell you my whole life story. I was born in a small town..." She might not have had a sparkling personality but she had a lot of baggage. The Titanic could have sank just loading it on board. I didn't like how she was with her boyfriend- does she love him or not? I couldn't tell you. I knew the murderer as soon as that person appeared. There was a huge info-dump at the psychic's house. The purpose, I'm guessing, is to get you to read the next book to see if the psychic was right or not.

Whew! Ok, now I feel better... and a little bad at the same time. Anyway...

Maybe it takes reading the other books to warm up to Marla. Maybe that was the problem for me. There were some interesting characters, like the mom and best friend. The pace, for the most part, was right and the ending was quite intense. Everything was wrapped up nicely with no loose ends, just a hint of what's in the next book.

All in all, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever read.

2/5

Categorizing

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There were some interesting responses to yesterday's meme at Booking Through Thursday. People have some definite feelings about what they read and how what they are reading is perceived. I especially liked Writing Wrongs and Marianne Arkins' response. They really thought about it.

The topic of the romance genre reminded me of a post from Bookseller Chick I read recently. She wrote a good rant on woman's fiction. She feels that anything written by a woman now, gets categorized as "Chick-Lit" by publishers. She especially bristles at the new category of "para-porn". What is that, you may ask? Apparently, it's horror novels with female protagonists.

I think this categorizing has gone too far. "Let's put everyone in a box," seems to be the way things are going. I use the term "Chick-Lit" myself but I'm feeling suddenly that it's become overused and is getting a bad reputation. I like novels with female protag's taking on the world. I like funny stories about shopping. I like a girl-meets-boy and overcomes obstacles to be together novel too, don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't put someone like Magaret Atwood, or Carol Shields in the Chick-Lit category, and they write predominately about women.

I often read "Classic" books, but Classic is hardly a category itself. You could just say it's a really old book but those old books could be categorized many different ways. Hemingway and Austen have very little in common, if they were contemporary authors. Pride & Prejudice is a romance (it's about love and marriage for goodness sake!), although it's old and well written.

I guess I think that you shouldn't feel bad about what you read. Just because I like Sophie Kinsella doesn't mean I don't like George Eliot. Variety is the spice of life. Read everything. Darn it just read!

March of the Librarians

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This is cute.

What attracts thousands of librarians to flock to a different city every six months? Is it the desire to mate? The coffee? One filmmaker tries to find out...

Watch for Hipster Librarians and Males with facial plumage.

Booking Through Thursday Again

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Love stories? Yes or No?

If yes, "romances" as a genre? Or just, well, stories that have love stories? (Nobody's going to call "Pride & Prejudice" a "romance," right?)

Don't forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments--or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

I do like a good love story. I don't like "romance" genre, especially harlequins. Too much sex and not enough story. I like a good balance. Plus, the plots are always the same. The "Outlander" Series is sometimes considered romance but I absolutely love it. I think it's because the characters love each other so much.

Lola

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Dh gave me Lola (from Hallmark) for Valentine's Day. Isn't she cute?

Love: British Style

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From BBC News, the Romance Novelists' Association has chosen the 10 most romantic books of all time. Here they are:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

3. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

4. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

6. Katherine by Anya Seton

7. Persuasion by Jane Austen

8. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

9. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

10. Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

I've read most of them. I don't know if I'd put Rebecca on my own list. It's more of a mystery than a romance. Tess is on my TBR list. I think I'd put Jane Eyre as my #1 though. I love the ending of that book! A few of these don't exactly have happy endings.

Do you think a romance has to have a happy ending? Of these, what would have made it on to your top ten? Any favorites of yours that you think should have been on the list?

Shoot Me Review

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For anyone who has ever complained that all Canadian books are morbid and depressing, this one is for you. Shoot Me by Lesley Crewe is funny, fluffy fun. It’s chick lit for the older crowd.

Elsie lives in an old house in Halifax, NS with her two twenty-something daughters, her soon to be ex-husband in the basement and her anti-social sister in the attic. Her other high-maintenance sister swings in and out of Elsie’s house with husband and little dog in tow. To say there’s never a dull moment would be an understatement. As if this weren’t enough, her old Aunt Hildy calls to say she’s coming home to die. Aunt Hildy has spent her life travelling the world as an archaeologist. She throws the whole family into an uproar when she tells them she has hidden treasure in the house somewhere and it’s up to them to find it.

Crewe has created a quirky, crazy but lovable family. The dialogue is in honest Maritime style. However, at times both the situations and the reactions of the characters bordered on the ridiculous. For the most part, it was a fun, quick read. If you’re planning a trip down south, throw it in your bag and read it on the beach. You won’t sprain any brain cells and you might get a chuckle or two.

Recommended

Are you an Aspiring Writer?

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After finishing Shoot Me tonight, I checked out the publisher's website: nimbus.ns.ca . I stumbled into their Writer's Blog and this post by Maureen Hull. I thought it was funny and useful advice for any aspiring writers.

Stay tuned for my review of Shoot Me in a future post.

Today's Booking Through Thursday

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From Booking Through Thursday

What kind of care do you take of your books? Let's review, shall we?

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat? I'm not particular about it, although I hate to see them cracked.
2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper? I have a number of bookmarks, which I always seem to lose ( just like gloves). I have one of those fashionable metal ones, but it's heavy and falls out all the time. Most of the time, I just grab an envelope or scrap paper, anything.
3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page? At first, I was horrified, "Write in books! Never!" Then I realized that, yes, I put my name in mine. Usually in pencil. Books get passed around in my family and I want them back.
4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into book bags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect? Some where in the middle. I have respect for them, but they are for reading afterall. I don't leave plastic on the furniture either.
5. Do you ever lay your books face-down, to save your place? Ummm...Yeah (blush)
6. Um--water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort? I used to read in the tub, but since I don't have the time for long bubble baths anymore, no.
7. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor? Most of them are in boxes in storage (boo-hoo!) right now. I do have a shelf of them at the moment. I have stacked them on the floor though.
8. Do you make a distinction--as regards book care--between hardcovers and paperbacks? Nope
9. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that's used, appreciated, but carefully cared for? Probably like a photo album.
10. Any additional comments? I shamefully admit, you can find smudges of chocolate in a few of mine.

Remember to post your answers in the comments or provide a link.

House of Mirth: DVD

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This past weekend, I borrowed "House of Mirth" DVD from the library. I was surprised it played at all since it looked as if someone used it to play floor hockey.

The movie stars Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart, a socialite on the look out for a wealthy husband. All the while, she is in love with a less than rich lawyer, Lawrence Seldon (Eric Stolz). Lily has to maneuver herself through the schemes of her rich friends, such as the back stabbing Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney).

The best acting was done by Gillian herself, in a very convincing and sympathic role as a woman coming apart. There were also great performances by Anthony LaPaglia, as Sim Rosedale and Elizabeth McGovern as Carry Fisher. Most of the other actors, including Laura Linney and Dan Aykroyd, seem fake, but I suppose it's rather difficult to be sincere when you're playing a bunch of phonies. Sim and Carry were probably the most sincere characters in the story anyway. Jodhi May, who played Grace Stepny, looked like she needed an anti-histamine. She spent the whole movie with watering eyes and a over the top acting (She was great in "The Mayor of Casterbridge"). I wasn't very impressed with Eric Stolz as Mr Seldon either. He wouldn't have been my first choice. I was also disappointed that the character Gerty Stepny wasn't in the film.

Overall, the film was beautiful and Gillian's performance makes up for all the bad. It won't live up to the book, of course.

3/5

The Mill On The Floss

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George Eliot is one of my favorite authors. She herself seemed like a character to me when I was in high school and learned ‘George’ was really Marian Evans. She not only adopted a male name but also dressed as one. She wrote many great novels, including Middlemarch and Silas Marner.

The Mill on the Floss is Eliot’s only tragic novel and the most autobiographical. It tells the life story of an intelligent and sensitive girl, Maggie Tulliver, daughter of a mill owner. Maggie’s early life involved an intense hero worship of her brother, Tom. The first two sections “Boy and Girl” and “School-Time,” I found rather dry and it took me quite a while to get interested. It can be summed up like this: Tom is a little bully and Maggie is loved starved and mostly ignored, unless she’s getting herself into trouble (often). She is criticized by most of the family as headstrong and unattractive because of her dark looks. The only person to understand her somewhat is her father who fearing she will end up unloved, makes Tom promise to take care of her when he dies.

The action picks up in “The Downfall.” Maggie’s father loses everything, including his mind, after losing a lawsuit against Mr Wakem, a wealthy lawyer. Mr Tulliver hardly pays poor Maggie any attention. He is obsessed with getting even. He makes Tom promise to get back the mill and avenge the family. Unfortunately, Maggie is close friends with Philip Wakem, the deformed son of the lawyer. Maggie is torn but gives him up for fear of upsetting her family.

Maggie grows into a gorgeous dark-eyed woman, receiving attention for being an exotic beauty but misunderstood because of her intelligence. Maggie finds herself trying to choose between two lovers. She feels an obligation to Philip to whom she feels morally obligated, even though she’ll lose the love of her brother. The second man is Stephen, sweetheart of her beloved cousin, Lucy, to whom she has an intense physical attraction. There is no right answer.

The problem with Maggie is that she thinks too much. She is an emotional mess as well. The emotion she wallows in most is Guilt. She believes that the key to her own happiness is to deny herself of what she wants in favor of what others expect of her. Philip calls it “a narrow self-delusive fanaticism.” I guess Eliot was trying to say that a woman of that time could hardly follow her own heart without there being dire consequences.

Not only does Maggie have to live up to the expectations of Tom, but also her mother’s side of the family, the Dodsons. They are often comical with their bickering and ideas of family pride. This was my favorite passage that sums up the family:

The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering
whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be
baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take
the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly
understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper
pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an
unimpeachable will.

They are all about appearances.

I enjoyed this novel after my struggles with the beginning. The characters are well written and realistic. Even the town, St Ogg’s, feels like every small town, with everybody knowing everybody else’s business and everyone has an opinion. As for the end, grab a box of Kleenex.

I give this book 3/5- it would have been 4/5 if it wasn’t for the first two chapters.

Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?

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I stole this from someone else's blog. She is my favorite character so I guess I lucked out.

Take the Quiz here!

Here's what it says about me:

You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of silliness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed.

Booking Through Thursday Meme

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Here's a book meme for the day from Booking Through Thursday. Go to the site to play along:

What are your reading habits? Do you tend to read at specific times during the day, or does it vary from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute?

Don't forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments--or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

When do I read: Well, these days with a 4 yr old running around, I grab reading time whenever I can. Mostly, in the evenings, say when she's getting a bath and after she goes to bed. I've been known to stay up late, even when I'm dog tired just to finish a chapter or two. When I was a teen, I'd stay up all night reading. It was nice having no responsibilities (keep that in mind, if you're a youngster!)