My Book Bench

Some people at dinner last week asked me what I'm reading now, and I had a hard time narrowing it down to just one.  I actually have three or four books that I've started in the last month, and I can't seem to decide which one I want to finish first.  So I've been reading all of them sporadically, and it's been nice to have different books to suit the mood I'm in when I get the time to sit still and read.
I've been making my way through Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game books.  I like OSC, and his latest book that I read back around Thanksgiving, Pathfinder, was a very good story.  These types of books fit the "escapist" mood I'm in sometimes in which the only solution to a rainy, dreary winter day here in CT is to read about life among the stars.
I read a short review of the book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes in an email from our local independent bookstore so I put it on my queue at the library.  I then forgot about it, until I heard that it was on hold for me.  I have read three of the stories so far, and each one has been fascinating.  If you like a good mystery these are short true stories about "Murders, Madness, and Obsession" (the by line).
Lastly, I've been making my way through Hamlet.  And loving it.  This fits the melancholy moods I've been in recently--and today especially since my friends moved away today.  All week the moving trucks and cleaning vans have been next door, sometimes blocking us in our driveway.  This has forced me to dwell on the inevitable: my friend is leaving.  This makes me very very sad.  The kids don't understand why I started to cry every time I saw the movers this week.  But that's okay.  At night I curl up on the couch and read a bunch of "to be or not to be" and "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" and all that.  Marvelous, I tell you.  BJ and I saw Hamlet in Creede on an anniversary trip, and based on that little bit of familiarity with the play I thought it would be a good first choice for reading Shakespeare.  I really am loving it.
Pretty soon I'm going to have to start reading happier subjects than murders and mysteries and science fiction (not that science fiction can't be happy), but for now the mood is somber and mellow and quiet.  Better days are ahead, though: Toby and I spotted a robin two mornings in a row while waiting for the bus.