Reading is FUNdamental!

I think most of you are shrewd enough to notice that at times I can be very verbose, garrulous, effusive, and well, . . . in a word, . . . long-winded. Wait. Is that really just one word, or would it be considered one and one-half words? I know. I know! I can hear you screaming at your monitor that, NOBODY REALLY CARES--JUST GET ON WITH IT!!! Okay. Fine. As I was saying, just look at the length of some of my posts--what I could say in five words takes me 314. I love words. I eat them up. Crossword puzzles and cryptoquotes make me hyperventilate. Especially if I have a competitor.

So yeah. (Now, that was profound.) For the past three months or so, I have been on a ridiculous reading jag, staying up much too late and causing the neighbors to talk:

"Look. Her light is still on, and it's after ten o'clock. In. The. PM!"

"Oh, glory be! Do ya think we should be concerned?"

"Well, if I see her wearing that Harry Potter getup yet one more time, I'm callin' the bishop. I think he should know. Her being in the primary and all . . . ."

Anywho. (This is going somewhere, I promise you that. Hang on one minute more. Or two.) I have recently come to the conclusion that there are certain people whose reading recommendations I can totally trust. I won't say anything about, well, The Others. And now I am going to try very rigorously and ardently to be succinct. (That means I'm going to try really, really, really, really hard to make it snappy.) Here are my recent reads of the last two or three-ish months and my reviews:

Loved it.

Loved it again, all 1152 pages of it.

(The miniseries continues to age well.)

Spectacular.

Loved it. (Thanks, Denise!)

Simply magical. The end.

Adored it. (Thank you, LA!)

Surprised myself by not really loving it.

The characters were, for the most part, quite shallow and narcissistic.

And wordy. How annoying!

THE MALTESE FALCON

Didn't love it. I guess this is more guy-lit than generally appeals to my taste.

Lots of bang-bang, blood, perishing, yada, yada.

(Thanks anyway, Dave.)

So now. Now! With all of this reading, I am feeling like I just sauntered through the food court at the mall inhaling some of my old favorite aromas while experiencing some new tastes as well--some delicious, some not so appealing (but not horrible; the really horrible ones didn't make my list because I didn't make it past the first few chapters [trust me, I have reasons]). I am now indulging in a long-time favorite, "Emma." Rereading anything by Jane Austen feels like I have exited the food court at the mall and just walked into my mother's house where I am greeted with the marvelous and comforting bouquet of her perfectly prepared porcupine meatballs, mashed potatoes and orange gravy. And homemade bread. Mmmmmm, it's all so good.