Yawn

I started reading Summer by J.M. Coetzee, which came recommended.  But then I do what I always do, with my microscopic attention span:  I read a few pages and thought, hmm, I'm not too excited about this book, let's turn to the internet, shall we?  I know.  My co-workers used to play a game that involved seeing how long they could talk to me without me needing to look something up on the internet, but it got too easy; as far as I know, it's not still a sport.

But I looked up Coetzee, and Wikipedia says this:

"Coetzee is a man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication. He does not drink, smoke or eat meat. He cycles vast distances to keep fit and spends at least an hour at his writing-desk each morning, seven days a week. A colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not a single word." - Jason Crowley

He doesn't really sound like someone I want to spend a bunch of time with, like 224 pages.  Am I being too hard on him?  I don't want to miss out on a good read, but seriously, one laugh in 10 years?  That seems like a misspent decade, if you ask me.  I may press on a bit, but I think I'll probably skip ahead to the next book in my pile, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley.  Let me know if I'm making a serious mistake.

Magic

My dear friend Barb has had her second book, Whistle Bright Magic, published, and it comes out today!

It's a fairy story in at least two ways -- the obvious way is that there are fairies in it, but it's also the story of a mother who stays at home with her kids, writes a book in her spare time, and it gets snapped up by Harper Collins. I'm sure she'd disagree with the term "snapped up", because there was a lot of hard work involved, but her friends like to see it as a modern day miracle in a good way, and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving author or person.

If you have young readers (8-12) in your life, check it out. It's a sweet story with a little magic, a lot of interesting characters, and a happy ending, which, when you think about it, is probably just like your life. I will confess that I got a little teary reading it because it was so well done and tender.

Available everywhere, starting today...