Always with the books, this one.

Has this ever happened to you?

Tuesday after work I went downtown to run some errands. Specifically: I was looking for a certain book for La Gemela Mala, a copy of the AMC River Guide for Vermont and a pair of kayaking shoes. Yes, kayaking shoes. And I specifically left the bookstore trip til the very end, reasoning that since I had to meet El Yo at 7pm, I would be forced to execute a tactical strike and come out with only those two books.

So of course I wandered around, picked up some postcards for some lucky, mail-lovin' monkeys, fell into The Body Shop and picked up a mask-like scrub that has kept my skin clear for two full days now and is totally justified, and then wandered up to Crow Books. And there was strategy in this too, because Crow Books is somewhat selective, so there shouldn't be as much temptation, lying around spreading their pages all over, flashing me a sexy serifed typeface, a saucy bookjacket. But I digress. And I digressed on Tuesday, which is why I met El Yo at 7 in the pub with Brave Bunny, Food from Green Places, Vermont Air and The Good Cookie. What's missing here? That's right. The books I originally set out to find.

So on one hand, chaos. On the other, an excuse to go to some more bookstores.

In other news, I finally had to give up on the new Clive Cussler, Trojan Odyssey. I know, I know. I feel like I'm letting down the genre, but something introduced in the last book is affecting this one.

SPOILER. BIG HONKING SPOILERS. Go pet a bunny if you need to keep the suspense in your Cussler.

Ready?

In the last book, Dirk Pitt found out that his longlost love, Summer, did not actually die in an underwater earthquake caused by Dirk Pitt when he blew up her mad father's underwater lair. In fact, she was horribly disfigured and pregnant (down, peanut gallery). And people who don't think madness is genetic take note: she named the fraternal twins who popped out 9 months later...Dirk and Summer Pitt. In the first place, this is wrong on so many levels: name one of your children after yourself if there's a family tradition of doing so, but both of them is overkill. Second? The twins are siblings, and you had a decidedly non-sibling relationship with their dad. Ew.

And I got over all of that, which happened conveniently in the last 10 pages of Valhalla Rising, but in this new book, the twins flirt with each other (did no one see this coming based on number 2 above?) a little too much for the reader's comfort. Also, it's super confusing to now have two Dirk Pitt's running around a tightly woven multilayer archeological espionage drama. It was all too much. Which was a pity, because I was really enjoying the actual plot. Maybe I'll come back to it later. Y'know, when Dirk and Summer Pitt have either gotten married or he's been squished by something and she has his babies, Sirk and Dummer Pitt.

Thanks to all those readers who submitted summer reading lists for my amusement. I'm keeping a canonical list over at (surprise!) Listology: Summer Reading Lists. Unfortunately I had to take down the link to the UC Berkeley freshman reading list because The San Jose Mercury News are bitches, requiring registration. Normally that's fine, but if you read their privacy policy, they can do whatever the fuck they want with your email address, up to and including spamming you with product advertisements from any company associated with Knight-Ridder newspapers. Yes, *that* Knight-Ridder, the giant newspaper conglomeration. I'm currently looking for an alternate link that doesn't involve reading about enlarging your penis. Any and all help is appreciated.

Apart from that, I'm waiting for La GamelaM to finish Sabriel so we can get our discussion on. This is the general problem with book clubs.