This book arrived in the mail yesterday.

I ordered two books of Dylan Thomas’s prose, Eight Stories and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog from Paperbackswap.  http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php is a web site on which one lists books that one is willing to mail to people thereby earning points. Points can be cashed in by requesting other people’s books. The only money involved is S & H. The website is very good about providing an option which will sell you postage. A pre-addressed pdf mailing label is free. I have mailed and requested several books.

I read the first of the Eight Stories last night and was sort of disappointed. It seemed to be a bit self consciously Welsh quaint. On the other hand I recently read and listened to Under Milkwood by Thomas which is a play for voices and loved the prose.

I just found the above picture of Thomas’s book on Oprah.com.  It was in an article called “Five Books To Read When You Need a Mood Boost” by Marjorie Garber.  The other four are Charlotte’s Web, Persuasion by Jane Austen, The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare, and Flush by Virgina Woolf. Good to know.

Chatting with Jeremy Daum, my beloved quasi son in law, this morning. He recommended a short story which I will soon read, “The Babysitter” by Robert Coover [link]. Never head of Coover but he definitely looks interesting.

Jeremy is currently working in China. It still fascinates me to chat online with people on the other side of the world.

Speaking of found pictures and websites, I think this is interesting.

I found it in a search for Robert Coover pics. I quite like it.

Recently I put as a status on Facebook that I was going to go play Beethoven and Prokofiev for fun. Someone responded how they admired that I played Prokofiev for fun. Unfortunately I got sidetracked that day by Tchaikovsky after Beethoven and never got to Prokofiev. In the last two days I have been playing him however.  He definitely fits my mood.