Kristi Wachter.com

936 pages.

Somebody recommended A History of the Modern World over on Ask Metafilter and I leapt over to the San Francisco library's website and requested it.

It's 936 pages. Not counting the (excellent-looking) appendices and bibliography.

I don't know what I was thinking.

This was a pleasant read. The main character, Alice, was likable enough (although I was occasionally impatient with her over-accommodating ways early in the book), and I enjoyed the plot's journey - I was slightly surprised by Alice's ultimate career shift, and there were a number of nice moments along the way.

Not a huge favorite, but enjoyable.

I picked this up while browsing the fiction shelves at the library. The cover illustration is beautiful and intriguing, and the plot description on the flap drew me in enough to check it out.

What enchanted me was the writing. Davis is poetic and mystical and simultaneously precise and clearly descriptive. The striking language is never gratuitous; Davis keeps the story unfolding.

I think this may be a book I need to own, just so I can reread the beautiful sentences, to revel in them, to learn from them.

I was never all that interested in space as a kid. I enjoyed reading The Martian Chronicles and some other sci fi classics, but I was barely aware of NASA or the science of space exploration.

That all changed for me on the Fourth of July, 1997, when I watched the Mars Pathfinder land on the red planet.

Well, that was one of my fastest reads in a while. It's nice to be able to sit and read for hours at a time. It's a luxury I hope to indulge in more often.

I enjoyed this book more as it went along. At the start, I didn't like Bernice, and I started longing for a book with likable characters. By the end, though, I liked nearly everybody.

I've been so lucky to see oystercatchers lately.

They're some of my favorite birds. They're about the size of a seagull, with black bodies, Silly Putty colored feet, and bright red tube-shaped beaks.

They can be incredibly difficult to see against the dark rocks where they feed. Fortunately, they often cry out just before they take flight. By following the sound, I can often spot them just before they leave their current rock for a different one.

I spent $26 at Goodwill this afternoon, and I feel great.

I love shopping at Goodwill. It makes me feel lucky, and smart, and frugal.

I passed Goodwill as I was walking home from the library. I'd been thinking about getting some new (well, new to me) jeans and a sweatshirt or two if I could find one, so I thought I'd go in to see what they had.

What they had was a sale. Every single piece of clothing in the store was just $2.