Dubitante

For those of you who pay any attention to what I am "Currently Reading" (see right), you may have noticed The Illuminatus! Trilogy, an 800+ page paranoid "epic," has disappeared after barely a week. Unfortunately, I had neither the patience nor the time for this sprawling, at times incoherent, diatribe. I really wanted to like it (I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory), and I gave it 100 pages or so to convince me, but I simply wasn't up to the task... I've now moved on to Mark Haddon's much lauded debut, hoping for better results. I'm a firm believer that first novels are often an author's best work (See, e.g., Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye; Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work....); hopefully, Mr. Haddon won't let me down.

In other book news, I just finished Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, a fantastically interesting and consistently funny treatise on the sad state of proper punctuation. I can now sleep more easily, knowing I am not alone in my involuntary proof-reading of all I lay my eyes on. At some point, I plan to post some of her especially entertaining passages; in the meantime, I highly recommend the book for all my fellow "sticklers" out there...