31 July 2008

Fresh French

While in Roanoke, I bought a lot of books. I can't help myself. I felt proud of myself for not going to the Green Valley book fair. That's an awful temptation. O didn't even buy any books after the author visits. But I still bought a good handful of other books at the faculty reading. I figured these people I knew and I was happy to get their signatures in the books, too. And then I also received a few gift books from a sweet teacher for my tutorial, in effort to help me with my Sleeping Beauty story by giving me some Medieval history books. Oh boy, history. Yes, I will have to read some history. I actually did read some library medieval history while I was in Roanoke, and it was pretty interesting. You should be proud of me.

But after receiving all these books, I came home thinking I was eager to read so many of them. I just couldn't decide.

Well, because I had taken so many of my own books with me down to Roanoke, and then with the acquisitions, I had a lot of reorganizing to do. I took just about all my books, even the ones that stayed, off the shelves to re-order and even changed the shelves for some topics. I did another project too to make room, but that's another story.

Anyway, in all of this self-enforced rummaging, I ran across this French book that I'd bought in Princeton like about a year and a half ago--le Petit Nicolas. And that was suddenly what I wanted to read. French. All of a sudden English didn't interest me at all. I felt this certain tiredness of English. All of these silly American stories, blah! They all seemed the same. Why couldn't English be like French?

Well, I just finished it tonight, and I have to say it was pretty sweet. Funny, clever, sometimes a little sad--as you'd expect from the culture. Sometimes it was a little predictable. I guess that kind of comes with all kinds of literature. But overall definitely enjoyable. I think I'm going to have to go get some more French books. Is that Green Valley Book Fair still going on?

Just kidding, I think I can read some English again, but I will be reading more French. It's just Fresh. What can I say?

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