Remember, way back, when I used to post things here?

I knew I’d post less when I got a job, but I have definitely been T-boned by the full-time schedule. Haven’t written a word since I started working. (Luckily I didn’t take a writing job.)

Am I concerned? Yes. But I set out a six-week zone for myself when I started, a six-week period where I would let myself not write if that’s what I needed to do. So far, I am taking my own offer. Hoping to change that this weekend, though.

But: Triumph in the reading department. I finally read something (A) I hadn’t read before and (B) that doesn’t feature Quidditch as a sport.

57. Everything Matters!– Ron Currie, Jr.
If you know me, you know that that exclamation point in the title has received more than its due attention. Why is there an exclamation point? Should you be able to get away with that sort of thing? I take my exclamation points very seriously. I wish I could remember which writer gave the advice that you were only allowed about three of them in print in your lifetime, so you’d better make sure you’re using them carefully.

I liked this book. It’s ambitious. It has an interesting multiple POV that usually works; one of the voices is multiple and sort of the point of the entire exercise. There’s a sort of inevitability about a lot of the book but then near the end, there’s a bit of a twist (not the kind you can’t forgive) that livens things up and, in a way, earns that exclamation point.

My friend Kim had this on her list, too, so as I was reading it I was trying to decide if she would like it. Not sure. It’s interestingly told, sweeping in the amount of time it covers, sad. She likes sad. I think it’s a fine example of post-9/11 writing that isn’t so much based on anything having to do with 9/11.

The only thing I got a little tired of? The boy-ness of the entire baseball/hero-worship of father parts of the book. I love my dad, don’t get me wrong. But there’s definitely an overall male slant to this book. To a lot of books, actually. Despite the fact that women make up most of the reading public, more men get published than women and here we are with another guy-focused book. I’m also just really really tired of baseball.