my addiction

The perks of teaching in Catholic school are that I don't work on holy days. Yesterday was Ascension Thursday and today is commonly known by Catholic school teachers as Ascension Friday. And of course, Monday is Memorial Day. So I wound up with a 5 day weekend (don't hate, people, please...) and pretty much nothing to do. Well, not until Sunday, anyway. I've been invited to one party and two barbecues this weekend. It's beginning to look a lot like summer!

You may recall the book dilemma I had in my previous post. Well, the saga continues. Yesterday I finally got the new book club selection in the mail (The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer). I started reading it right away, and I'm up to chapter seven already. It's a quick and easy read, and it's not too bad as far as plot goes.

I intended to put Everyone Worth Knowing (Lauren Weisberger) aside until I finished some of the other books, but I got bored last night and stayed up til 3 AM to finish it. A good beach read - lots of name dropping and celeb mentions. And one of those perfect romantic endings that makes me believe that there is a Mr. Right out there. Damnit, chick lit. You always get my hopes up.

Still re-reading The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown), but I put it aside in lieu of The House of the Scorpion. Haven't even touched Secret Supper (Javier Sierra). Soon... soon...

Today I went to Neshaminy Mall to kill time. I went to the bookstore to buy the book I'm reading for my grad school class lit circle, Esperanza Rising (Pam Munoz Ryan). I also bought one of the other books on the list (Pictures of Hollis Woods, by Patricia Reilly Giff), just because it looks good. I'm gonna wait and read that one later. Then... things got out hand. I spotted the new-in-paperback Jennifer Weiner novel, Goodnight, Nobody. Then I saw The Mermaid Chair (by Sue Monk Kidd, who also wrote The Secret Life of Bees... awesome book), so I picked that up as well. Went in for one book, came out with FOUR. Go figure.

So my new plan is this. I'm going to continue reading The House of the Scorpion and start reading Esperanza Rising. It'll be neat to read both at once. Both books are award-winning young adult fiction. Esperanza is about a little girl and her abuelita, set in Mexico during the Great Depression. Scorpion is about a young boy who is the clone of a drug lord, and it's set in Mexico sometime in the future. Should be a lot of interesting comparisons. Hope I don't get the two plots mixed up!

And that's about it for now. Enjoy the holiday weekend, all!