What have I been doing? Moving, renovating, cycling, being sick (hubby and I were laid low with food poisoning this week and I’m still not really okay), and reading. What have I been reading? I couldn’t recall when I typed that compellingly original rhetorical question; I actually had to check the Goodreads to see what I’d plowed through since my last little update.

This is what Goodreads tells me I’ve read in the past 6 weeks, and I have no reason not to believe it. But it’s a dauntingly long list. One-sentence reviews it is! (Warning: I cannot guarantee that semicolons won’t be harmed during the making of this post.)

Restless, William Boyd. An excellent thriller/espionage romp, except for the final few chapters which were written by Boyd’s evilly boring and predictable alter-ego.

The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima. Perfection, except for the last sentence which was entirely Mishima in its masculine concerns but made no sense in this book.

Dr. Thorne, Anthony Trollope. The third installment in The Chronicles of Barsetshire boasts one of the most awkwardly contrived plots I’ve encountered but it’s Trollope so I still kind of loved it.

And Then, Soseki Natsume. No one can make modern ennui so convincing, compelling, and beautiful as Soseki can.

Troubles, J.G. Farrell. Christ, what absolute greatness; if you don’t believe me, check out Rohan’s review.

All Our Worldly Goods, Irene Nemirovsky. As sublime and gorgeously bitter as Fire in the Blood and Suite Francaise.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell. Unfinished–because Gaskell died suddenly–but still a show-stopping number.

The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa. All the gorgeous style of Hotel Iris and The Diving Pool but lacking the energy that made them truly outstanding.

Mrs. Lirriper, Charles Dickens and friends. I never found that Trollope reference but I really enjoyed this series of good stories about a respectable boarding house in London and, of course, Dickens made me cry copiously while I did so.

So. Here we are, all caught up. I just want to say, moving is one of the worst things in the world; it’s cramping my style in every facet of my life. But we’re getting there in terms of settling in–and settle in we will, because I’ve decided we will never move again except perhaps at gunpoint. And maybe not even then. My “pared down” book collection still filled over 20 unliftable boxes, gawdammit!

But I’ve unpacked all those books and I’m now tasked with the sisyphean task of sorting my husband’s approximately 12, 374 comic books. I now know that he was just a leetle bit obsessed with Spiderman and that his 8-year-old self was also perhaps not as discerning as his 38-year-old self is:

No, I didn’t read that. But as we’re going to be here a long time, you never know.