2008/06: Sarah Canary -- Karen Joy Fowler

Sarah Canary -- Karen Joy Fowler
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My previous post on this book: I am not a science fiction reader ....

Books Not Read ...

So far in 2008 I've started, continued or picked up with good intentions ...

* The Pyrates, George McDonald Fraser (in memoriam): cannot read more than thirty pages without brain itching. Good for nights when I go to bed drunk.
* The Howling Miller -- Arto Paasilinna: clunky translation, unexceptional story. Hoping for marvels in last 50 pages.
* Incantation -- Alice Hoffman: next book-club book, looking forward to it but simply haven't been in the mood for this at any of the select-next-book decision points lately.
* The Amber Spyglass -- Philip Pullman: doesn't count as (a) reread (b) skimmed
* One Hundred Ways for a Cat to Train Its Human -- the cats will only let me read this in the bathroom, and they keep wandering in to quiz me ...
* Selected Tales and Sketches -- Nathaniel Hawthorne: still grimly plodding through Puritans / witchcraft / pioneers for Penguin 'blog a classic'.
* Where Three Roads Meet -- Salley Vickers: really must get round to this so swisstone can have it back, and while I still remember anything the author said at the Purcell Room in early December
* Empire of Blue Water -- Stephan Talty: pirates! Morgan!
* Ghostwriting Modernism -- Helen Sword: research
* Exploration and Exchange: A South Seas Anthology 1680-1900 -- Jonathan Lamb: research

Meanwhile I am sitting at werk, counting the hours (not many!) and trying to rise above the frustration of cancelled meetings*. And I cannot even read surreptitiously under the desk ...

*I don't care if I can't hand things over.

Handover ...

I've just had an intensive half-hour meeting with a colleague. (Scheduled for 3, happened at 4. First scheduled meeting today that has not been cancelled.) I told him what I was planning to work on for my last two days, and mentioned the Major Handover tomorrow, and intimated that I would not actually care if a particular project underwent another change of direction.

Right at the end of the meeting he blinked at me and said, "Er -- are you leaving us, then?"

Trying very hard to keep a straight face. And wondering who else has or hasn't been told.