At last

I'm in total admiration of my friend Cathy, who is reading all of the Booker long list at quite a rate. Meanwhile I've taken the longest time I can pretty much remember to read one book. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (who in my estimation would have had problems passing OU Creative Writing A215 because of his extremely long, long sentences and paragraphs - which sometimes went on for pages) and I have finally finished. I now feel I can get back to reading far more accessible novels.

The book itself was an interesting premise. Charles Lindbergh becomes the 33rd President of the United States and from that moment the US becomes an anti-semitic nation hell bent on becoming an outreach of Hitler's Germany during the Second World War. It sounded so promising, but I have to say by the very unsatisfying end I was just pleased I'd managed to finish it.

Of course it didn't help that I bought a new toy to play with... which is a fold-up keyboard for my iPad and is truly fantastic. Also I was told about an amazing app that allows me to write notes on my iPad. I don't even need a stylus as I can write with my finger... how incredible is that? And then, just to make sure that I didn't spend my time reading I've been playing untold amounts of games from bloody Angry Birds to good old Solitaire. What a waste of time. I've now given myself an ultimatum that I will only allow myself game time for a very short period every day, and it's back to my book pile and getting on with some writing as I have another short story to write for a competition next month.

So what's next? Well I've got two books sitting waiting to be read, One Day by David Nicholls (which has been made into a Hollywood movie starring Anne Hathaway), and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. I think I'm going for the former as I need a bit of light reading to get me back into the flow.

Meanwhile Cathy is already over half way through the BLL. You can read all about her exploits on her blog. She's an industry insider and it's her job, but I have to say I still marvel at her capacity to race through 13 books in a very short space of time. She obviously hasn't got into the delights of Angry Birds... sensible woman!