I’ve only got tomorrow to do a whole list of chores and errands and then I fly to L.A. at 6 AM Sunday morning. So just now, before heading off to bed, I scanned the bookshelves, trying to decide what to take with me to Santa Monica.
It’s hard to decide because I can never tell how much I’m actually going to read. Sometimes I’ll read a lot while in L.A. Other times, hardly at all. It always seems like a great way to get a lot of reading done. There in the hotel room after work with nothing to do, grab a book, walk over to the beach, plant myself on a bench and read into the setting sun. Never happens. Usually I’m wiped out. I have trouble deciding what to eat, if I eat by myself, or I’m going out to dinner with friends and by the time I get back to the hotel, I’m too tired to read.
Anyway, seeing as how I should finish up The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress tomorrow, I ended up pulling two Barry Malzberg short story collections off the shelf:
(I’m in the mood for short stories and Malzberg is one of the finest short story writers I’ve ever come across. I place him up there with Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, also he is stylistically, very different from either.)
The thing is: will two be enough? Maybe, maybe not, so I need a third as a backup, just in case. (There’s almost nothing that annoys me more then finishing a book away from home, and not having a backup to get started on right away.)
So I need to scan the shelves a little longer–but not tonight. I’m wiped out and off to bed.
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