Okay, so maybe it's true that all I do is sit around eating desserts and reading books. So be it.


Book: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
It seems most everyone has heard this story either by reading the book or seeing the musical, but I'm a little slow on the uptake. This was a fast-paced and visually stimulating novel. I started to lose steam near the end when Maguire tries to tie the story into Dorothy's arrival and the witch starts waxing existential. Nevertheless, it was a nice distracting read for my lazy summer afternoons in various coffee shops.


Book: The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby
Tagline reads: "A hilarious and true account of one man's struggle with the monthly tide of the books he's bought and the books he's been meaning to read." I love Hornby's books, especially High Fidelity, and found that I enjoy his literary self-disclosures just as well. I mostly appreciate his humor, and the fact that he neurotically plans his next reading based on the feelings exuded by his previous one.




Film and Television: Firefly Series and Serenity
Quite possibly (no, definitely) the first science fiction series I've actually enjoyed. As earth becomes overpopulated, people begin seeking out and inhabiting other planets. So instead of the typical futuristic science fiction with weird looking aliens you find a dozen fledgling planets populated with humans and an amalgamation of diverse cultures. It's an oddly endearing mix of the wild west and outerspace. Watching the Firefly series was what got me hooked. The movie Serenity is just a shorter, darker variation of the story.

The dessert of the week this week was a functional effort to rid our freezer of ice cream before we leave for the mitten state. Thus we enjoyed vanilla bean ice cream with fresh raspberries topped with a shot of Bonny Doon raspberry dessert wine. It disappeared much too quickly to snap a photo.