And it's only Tuesday...

Thinking I'd be able to multi-task this morning, during my last stint as a helper in the nurse's office at my daughter's school, I took a laptop from work, saved all the files I needed to a flash drive, and was feeling very virtuous last night...until I relized I left my flash drive, with my cell phone and calendar, sitting on my desk.

Therefore, I was forced to spend my 3-hour shift, between bandaging paper cuts and doling out ice packs, reading my latest review book. Reviewing for Library Journal has been a lot of fun this past year. I've read books that I might not have otherwise seen. The latest, of which I can say very little right now, is the best of the lot.

I was looking through the books that I've reviewed yesterday, thinking that I might look in the public library catalog to see how many of them were purchased. The first one I reviewed, "Nox dormienda", was a historical mystery set in first-century Londimium. The main character, Arcturus (yes, I am wondering whether there will be any references in future books to King Arthur) is a healer and has the ear of the governor. One of the things I liked about the book was the atmosphere--it was gritty and dirty, just like I'd imagine an outpost at the edge of the civilized world to be.

I also reviewed Jason Goodwin's third Inspector Yashim mystery. That series, with its air of eastern intrigue and slightly different world view, kept my interest til the end. (I'll admit now, if I'm losing interest in a book, I'll read the ending to see if I think it's worth plowing through the entire thing.)

I just discovered that I saved one of my reviews with the wrong title and author! I hope I didn't send it in that way! The title was the same as the first review I wrote; the book, about Catherine d'Medici. The author turned hers into a love story, which took a total suspension of belief for me to begin with, but once I got past that part, it was a good book. The author, Jeanne Kalogridis (the book: The Devil's Queen), writes an intesting blog here: http://www.historyisabitch.com/.

Now I'm off to read some more of my review book, and perhaps a couple more essays in one of the several volumes of Persuasions that I hope to catch up on this year. IT must be time to finish because one of the cats keeps walking across the keyboard, necessitating (?SP?) much retyping.