You'd All Be So Proud...

I went to Barnes and Noble after work today with the intention of buying the new Orson Scott Card book that came out today, War of Gifts, and guess what...I bought it and it was the only book I bought! For those who have read my blog for awhile, you will know that it's a rare occasion that I walk out of a bookstore with only the book that I intended to leave with. It's usually at least a $50 bill. But today, it was only $10.14 with my member discount :)

Oh sure, there were plenty of distractions along the way. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by the beautiful new edition of War and Peace that Dark Orpheus made me aware of. So I drooled over that one for a little while and then put it back on the display slightly more damp than it was before. But I will be buying that one next year. I want to read some more Tolstoy and that edition is just to nice to pass up!

Then I pass the huge dark fantasy/horror display...now how I managed to get past this one without taking any home is beyond me...I just kept saying "no!" Of course now they have a bajillion copies of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury now that I've gone and ordered it off of Amazon since I couldn't find it there the other night. So if it doesn't arrive from Amazon by tomorrow, I now know that I can go buy the $5.50 copy at B&N for my Halloween night reading pleasure.

So basically, I found a bunch of books that I'll be buying eventually anyway, but the important thing is that I didn't blow my whole paycheck today! Maybe the kid is finally learning how to control spending habits...er, yeah, that's it....

I was very happy to find War of Gifts though! I was preparing myself for disappointment. My poor favorite author never gets the attention he deserves on the day his books are released. So I went to the Sci-Fi section and sure enough there were none there...I kept looking and as I was about to give up I saw a huge pile of the books by the front door! I'm guessing this one actually got some promotion because it's an Ender story. It's a cool little book and I'm sure I'll read all of it's 126 pages tonight. It's what all of us Ender fans have been referring to as "Christmas in Battle School" for the last 2 or 3 years. And that's what it is. It's the story of Christmas (which is banned) during the events of Ender's Game.

In other news, I'm waiting to the very last minute to post my RIP wrap-up because I want to squeeze in The Halloween Tree tomorrow night. I'm also reading Rebecca right now, which is amazing, but I'm only about 200 pages in, so I doubt I'll finish that by tomorrow with the new Orson Scott Card and The Halloween Tree to read. So that one will count as a November read. But I have completed the RIP Challenge and have read 11 books so far. I have one more short story in the Wizards anthology which I'll probably read tonight which will bring me up to 12. That's all my book news for the day!

The Death Of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

This is another one that has sat on my shelves for awhile, but finally got read thanks to the Classics Challenge. I really enjoyed The Death of Ivan Ilyich...well, I don't know if "enjoyed" is the write word, but it is a remarkable novella. There's a wonderful intro written by Ronald Blythe. In the intro Blythe writes about Tolstoy's great fear of death that eventually turned into an obsession with death that lead to the creation of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, his meditation on the subject.

The book opens immediately after the death of Ivan Ilyich. Ivan was a judge and when his co-workers find out about his death, the first thing they begin to talk about is who will take his place. This scenes is followed by his funeral where we meet his wife who is in mourning. The book then goes on to introduce us to Ivan and his wife in the early days of their marriage and paints a picture of a marriage that was all bright colors on the outside, but rather dark behind closed doors. Ivan soon finds out that he has a "floating kidney" and his health slowly deteriorates over the next few months eventually leading to his death.

The beauty of this book is that the plot is given away in the title. Ivan dies...you know the book ends with his death. Tolstoy's masterpiece lies not so much in the actual storyline, but in the thought process, the philosophy, and the atmosphere behind it. The only way I can describe the feel of this book is claustrophobic. From the minute that Ivan learns and recognizes that he is dying, the feel of the story is one of collapsing, closing in. It becomes a story of seeing the world fly by so fast that you can't grasp on to anything to stay in it. It's quite sad actually, but so wonderfully told by Tolstoy and becomes one of the most haunting stories I've ever read in it's final pages.

I'm glad that I've finally gotten around to this one and look forward to revisiting Tolstoy in the future, most probably with Anna Karenina based on comments from yesterdays post! This one's a quick read, but a poignant one...highly recommended.

Migraines And Moving Forward

The migraines are back...blah. Things have actually been pretty decent lately when it comes to headaches. Ever since I started the topamax the migraines have started to cool down to maybe 3 or 4 a month instead of the previous 6 to 8 per month. The neurologists says that the best I can hope for is to get them down to about 2 to 3 per month, which will work for me, but she says that unfortunately, I'll probably always have them and I'll just have to take the Relpax to get rid of them when I get one. But in the last week I've had 2! This will be the third. That sucks...I haven't had 3 headaches in a week in ages...probably about 6 months.

So I'm spending the night watching Lord of the Rings on TV even though I own the dvds and could watch them with without commercials, a topic that Deslily wrote about not too long ago. Funny how us silly humans do things like that...but then again, if you watch the movie on tv, you do get the wonderful entertainment of seeing commercials with little jingles that sing "viva viagra"......

I've been reading again lately which is good. I'm so glad to be out of that slump, and the books that I've been reading have been really good! I'm currently reading my first Tolstoy for the classics challenge (a very short Tolstoy) and his writing is incredible! If I'm feeling brave one of these days I'll attempt to tackle War and Peace or Anna Karenina, but that probably won't happen any time soon. There's a great 30 page introduction by Ronald Blythe before my version The Death of Ivan Ilyich that tells you all kinds of really cool things about Tolstoy. Strange guy, but cool guy.

The best news of the week is that I have 2 job interviews next week! One on Monday and one on Friday. The one on Monday is for a job that I've been wanting since before I graduated and I've applied for that job 3 times, so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for that one! They're both state counseling jobs, so while the pay wouldn't be the best, I would have excellent benefits and it would be good experience while I'm getting my licensure. At this point I don't really care that much about the money any more. Sure, it needs to be enough for me to live on, but I just want to be somewhere where I am happy and where I'm working with kids and making a difference in their lives. If I can find that, I'm cool.