Friday, April 15, 2011

Decisions, Decisions

Okay. Whew. I got into grad school, have a whole different cold, and am looking to self-medicate as I juggle the following:
*Moving to Chicago, including finding a house and a daycare (possibly harder than finding a house)
*Scheduling flights for my husband (whose #1-ranked doctoral program is 700 miles away)
*Cleaning the house for Passover (this is both a spiritual and a physical cleaning, involving the digging-through of closets and vast quantities of boiling water and wax paper)
*Finishing the frog-swallerin' taxes (which are due the day Passover starts, and I ask you, which of us is man enough to properly file medical bills? Including NyQuil receipts?)
*Trying to still be creative and energetic about teaching even though I'm leaving and the kids palpably don't care (IS IT SPRING BREAK YET FOR GOSHSAKES)

So, clearly I need a book over troubled waters. Here are the choices:
*Call Me Irresistible, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. SEP is the sine qua non of romance writers. She has a whole romance-verse populated by strong and sensitive men, many professional football players, which is inexplicably soothing while also being erotic and funny. Now, people, including me, might mock me for this secret weakness, but I would suggest that if a PERSON were soothing, erotic, and funny, you'd snatch 'em up! Am I right? My concern: I've been out of the SEP loop for a while and I'm not sure I can tolerate references to other characters/situations in the oeuvre, as that will make me feel both silly for having known/loved them in the first place and elitist for having left them behind. Elitist is not the word I'm looking for, but perhaps said word is in the Passover closet, in which case, fuck it.
*My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson. This is, apparently, The Help with Filipina nannies. I liked The Help, despite some political issues therewith, and I like stories about nannies. I have no objection to learning more about Filipinas.
*An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James. I've recently finished the last of James' Adam Dalgliesh novels, about which I'm really pretty torn up, so it seems like rounding out her British mystery list is worthwhile. But I'm dragging my heels: what if Cordelia Gray's not as GOOD? (James' female characters are not particularly sympathetic, and they're a bit uncannily self-aware). What will I do when there's no more new P.D. James LEFT? (The woman's in her eighties. Let's be real.)
*Captive Queen, by Alison Weir. I like Alison Weir all right, I don't know anything much about Eleanor of Aquitaine, and there's a nervous-looking woman in a fancy dress on the cover. What more could I need.

Please note: the choice will be paired with Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. I'm actively trying to fill in gaps, and I'm avoiding Ivanhoe and Ethan Frome with a nice Victorian fattie (although Gaskell doesn't make me swoon, and it's recently turned out that Wharton kind of does. A little bit. Mostly The House of Mirth.)

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