The real magic

When I got my futon, I moved my IKEA chair into an unused corner of my bedroom. Along with a halogen lamp and a foot rest thingy, it made up my 'reading corner'. At one point, I even had a green basket (a gift from The Fainter) filled with magazines at the foot of the IKEA chair. It looked very nice; I just never actually sat down and read it in.

This past weekend, I've on a reading binge. I've always loved to read, but the last few years, it's been more like a book a month -- reading time has been reduced to a few pages every night just before I fall asleep. But something sparked in me last week. I think it was when I was putting my name on the waiting list for the latest Harry Potter and I realized I could peruse the whole library catalog from the comfort of my home office and have the books waiting for me when I got to the library. I went a little insane :-)

Today, I picked up my copy of Harry Potter from the library. Amazingly, for being 274th on the waiting list, I got the email notice on Saturday itself. But before there was Harry, I ran through The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Both books, btw, are well worth reading as the prose and character nuances are amazing. At any rate, since Thursday, I've sat in my reading corner, read two novels and the first two chapters of the new HP and it's been fun and wondered, why don't I do this more often?

Here's the other thing: I don't remember much about the fifth HP book and I'm afraid to look up a summary in case of spoilers. So if someone knows where there's a fifth book synopsis without spoilers and will tell me about it, I will love you forever and ever. And now, Muggles, I'm off to see just how much of a dent I can make in the latest Hogwarts hijinks before I'm forced to call it a night.