Wow! It really has been a long time since I posted, as a friend recently reminded me. I honestly didn't think anyone was reading my boring drivel. My life has been really crazy lately, but as I previously promised, I will try to stick to the original purpose of this blog, literature and finding pennies. With some "life" stuff thrown in occassionally. ;) Let's start with the pennies. I just returned from a trip to Cleveland, my home town where I found a lot of change on the ground. I think people there must not care or pay attention to all the coins they discard. As for the trip, it was wonderful seeing old family, friends and places I used to visit. Fun, restful and a bit melancholic. Oh well. I did get over to Cedar Point, the best amusement park in the world where I became a kid again for a little while, but also felt old, as my body cannot take all the pounding entailed on those huge roller coasters. I found so much change on the ground that day. People need to empty their pockets before they go whipping through the air in every direction possible. Literature...since I last wrote, I've read a couple of books. I'm just finishing up One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gael Garcia Marquez, the same author of Love in the Time of Cholera. I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey I've taken with the characters. I've loved the quirkiness, the passion, and yes, the melancholy of the characters. Each character is so unique yet very familiar to me. I do, however, wish I had read the book for a class or book club or something since the actual act of reading has felt very much an act of solitude itself. The characters are so engrossed in their own lives and their own minds that no one understands each other, or cares to. I find that to be the unfortunate circumstance of my own existence sometimes as well. I also read Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky. I recently joined a woman's book club and that was the assignment. Although I didn't think much of the book (it would make a good movie though), I was fascinated by the author's story and how the book came to be published. Nemirovsky died at Auschwitz and the manuscript was found and completed years after her death. I do recommend it for someone who enjoys a light, easy read involving passion and scandal. Before that I read What is the What? by one of my faves, Dave Eggers. I LOVED this book. I adored his autobiography A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius so much that I decided to read everything I can find by him. This latest award winning book was such an important story. I think everyone should read it, even if you don't consider yourself a reader. It's an easy read in terms of technicality, but a difficult story to stomach emotionally. Valentino Achak Deng is a true hero and his story needs to be shared. Thank you Dave Eggers for bringing this story of struggle, pain, triumph and hope to the masses. On my recent travels to Cleveland, I stopped in at a wonderful little bookstore in a part of town called Larchmere and picked up a few books. Dave Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity, Zadie Smith's (another HUGE fave) On Beauty, Joyce Carol Oates's Black Girl/White Girl and my next read The Professor and the Madman, a true account of the gentlemen who compiled the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm so excited. Future reading includes Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, Ian McKewan's Atonement and the Zadie Smith book. I love, love, love Zadie Smith. Highly recommend White Teeth to everyone. This young woman is a genius! That's all for now. I'll keep posting all my future literary adventures!