As I said yesterday, vacation is going well. I had a chance to spend some time with David and Nicholas yesterday and that was fun. In addition I am having time to read and practice which is always good.

I’m returning to reading Pale Fire by Nabakov. When I was in my teens I had a little paperback copy of this book. It fascinated me that an author could write a story by making what looked like an annotated edition of a longer poem, all of it made up: the poem, the footnotes, the people involved. I recently figured out that Nabakov didn’t intend that one flip back and forth between the poem and the footnotes. Rather the book is designed to read straight through. This is helpful when reading an ebook version of it. 31% into it.

I’m sitting in the kitchen alone. I think I’m the only one awake. This is a still time in this busy household. A few years back I would be joined by Cynthia’s Dad, Butch. He has since passed away and is missed in this household.

Since no one’s around I feel comfortable quietly listening to this amazing music.

What does it mean for a journalist today to be a Serious Reader? – Columbia Journalism Review

Stumbled across this article this morning. I love reading about others reading habits. It’s encouraging to hear anecdotal stories about people’s love affair with reading.

I had leisure time yesterday to finish a long short story I had started in Murakami’s Men Without Women: Stories. I also spent time with my beloved Dylan Thomas.

I have read most of his poems so reading them usually means returning to old friends. Again I began reading Thomas when in my teens.

I’m still reading Outcasts of Time and Zink.  My ebook reader tells me I’m 86% into the former and 40% into the latter. They are both good light vacation reading.

I’m 85% into The Ballad of Halo Jones by Moore and Gibson. I read a lot of it in a library copy. The ebook copy is actually easier for me to read since I can enlarge the page and read Alan Moore’s fascinating dialogue and description easier.

I’m also dipping into John Donne’s poetry and the beautiful moving descriptions of John Muir of the area I’m visiting.

Then there’s Greek and some more nerdy music reading I have brought along. You can see vacation is indeed going well.

A Presumption of Guilt | by Bryan Stevenson | The New York Review of Books

I am a fan of Bryan Stevenson. He is doing some good corrective work explaining how our present problems in the USA form a direct line from our shameful enslavement of Africans.

The Torturers Speak – The New York Times

State criminals. As are most of our public national leaders from the last and this century.