"In the train -- December 17th --Has there ever been a hotter day -- the land is parched -- golden with the heat -- The sheep are sheltering in the shadow of the rocks -- in the distance the hills are shimmering in the heat -- M. and I sitting opposite each other -- I look perfectly charming."

--Katherine Mansfield, The Urewera Notebook, final entry

I have not been posting much lately because, aside from flinging myself across and into Lake Champlain (newly re-invigorated by a recent Champ sighting)(the lake, not me. I remain constantly invigorated on that score), it's been all about work. And the first rule of online journals is: don't talk about work in online journals. So there's that. Or rather, there isn't. So there's talking about books instead.

When we moved, it became clear I had a problem. And that problem took up 12 stacking bookshelves, 5 boxes too big to do anything except push across the floor, 4 smaller, more manageable boxes and 7 duffel bags, one of which is the infamous green laundry bag big enough to move a body. Y'know, if you had to. And that's not counting the books I decided I had to move by hand, stuffed into purses and backpacks and clutched to paint-stained tshirts on repeat trips across town.

Now the books are all unpacked and mostly have homes. The 12 bookshelves are lined up in the living room along with one hijacked entertainment center and half a baker's rack.

(there was supposed to be a picture here, stolen from Yo's stash, but for some reason I can't get a connection in to the server. This is another thing I will blame on the Bush administration, as it has absolutely the same effect as blaming them for things they actually do.)

The other two bookshelves, the 6 carefully organized piles on the floor and the stack above the mantelpiece are also a part of the decorations. The stack above the mantelpiece are the most organized, as they're the ones pre-culled for harvest by The Deadly Meringue. Mr and Mrs Right Deadly are visiting in November, which means two options. One, say nothing and know that The Deadly M will be creeping around at night doing her own harvesting (followed by trying to shake down her suitcases for illicit exports as she runs for the door) or Two, identify which books would most likely fall in her suitcase and cull them beforehand for easy picking. She collects culinary mysteries, Jill Churchill books and can read a Harlequin romance in 27 minutes, cover to cover. These categories are easy to spot, and are being supplemented by any duplicates I run across. Moving your excessive book collection is a good way to run across duplicates.

So one way or another, the collection will get smaller. And as I fully intend never to move again it's less of an issue, but there have been dire mumblings on the Yo front about the quantity of these books, so perhaps a small concession can be made. Or a bigger one, depending on how many duplicates I can find between now and November.

You would think that with all this largesse I could stay out of the library. Not so.

It continues to amaze me that libraries just hand you books and let you read them, for free. I understand the part about giving them back, and really don't have a problem with it. The huge personal collection has grown out of libraries not having what I want right this second, and having a First World moment with ebay and a credit card. Or several moments. I try to hide the packages, but El Yo works from home. No room for subterfuge.

Library books currently sitting on the other end of the mantelpiece:

• The Mystery of the Nile: The Epic Story of the First Descent of the World's Deadliest River by Pascale Scuturro and Richard Bangs. If you click on the link, do you not think that is the sexiest book jacket ever? They're on a boat! With whitewater! And a sphinx! Totally Boy's Own Whitewater Adventure Now with New Improved Python Action. There's a great couple of chapters about the history of the river, and the attempts of various improbably named Europeans to be "the first people down it". You know, apart from everyone who lives there and has done that six times before breakfast. And tales of failed first descents are always amusing, because they involve the explosive combination of religion, ego and crazy white people with outboard motors and helicopters. Yes, that's true. Helicopters.


• The Black Gloves by Constance and Gwenyth Little. I can't review it yet since I haven't read it, but the Little sisters spent the 40s and 50s sitting in their beds plotting Golden Age murder mysteries and smoking like chimneys. How can this be anything but awesome?


• Mister Monday by Garth Nix. Haven't read it yet, but from the back cover, it looks like a mix of haunted houses, parallel universes and immaculate day-planning. Eggzellent.
• Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea's Biodiversity by Michael E Soule etc etc etc unending scientific journal authoring fishcakes. I know! I can't explain it. But it's fascinating beyond words. It's a textbook, so I can only read it in little 25-page chunks, but those are chunks of pure awesome, and I have it checked out until the middle of December. What can I say. I have water issues. Also, that cover is way prettier in real life, and I am tempted to slice it off and hang it on the wall, except We Do Not Do That to Library Books.


• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. (No pretty cover). Not only have I never read this, but see above under "issues, water".


• The Urewera Notebook / New Zealand Stories by Katherine Mansfield. Famous people like camping just as much as the rest of us. Even more so if they're ultimately doomed mentally ill bisexual British Modernists. (Hello? Everyone paying attention now? Super.) For those of you who got actually lucrative college degrees, Katherine Mansfield was a native New Zealander who, after a brief stint in London at the age of 17, emigrated to the UK to publish short stories and incur the wrath of Virginia Woolf. While she was home in New Zealand after her bohemian teen year, Mansfield's father, attempting to distract her from the whole "London thing", sent her on an extended tour of New Zealand's North Island. While the trip ultimately failed to disuade KM from her plans, she did keep a huge journal about the whole thing which is fascinating, assuming you're a big big geek who likes nature writing and Modernism. Luckily enough, this is my demographic.

I finished Urewera in one day, and am now working my slow way through NZ Stories. While, y'know, not reading about rafting with pythons, conserving said pythons and their sea cousins, or killing smokers. Next time: yet more absence of talk about w*rk!