At a stoplight the other day I saw the man next to me immediately pick up a book, prop it on the steering wheel, and start reading. So I suppose there are others who dislike driving getting in the way of reading. I wonder if our city's hands-free law applies to books as well as phones. Great beach photo! Was there much sign of hurricane damage in Galveston? Penguin, sorry about the flooding. ?

Nothing finished, or likely to be soon. Dh is out of the country for 3 weeks and I'm single-momming it while everyone finishes up their academic year and must be driven to endless social events ... I think I read thirty pages in all last week.

You don't think your workspace would be enriched by a bevy of emotional support critters? ?

My package today was guinea pig hay for feeding Wee Girl's furry stress toys. Nothing calms an anxious child like a lapful of piggie.

A long time ago. Couldn't tell you what it's about anymore. But I do remember really liking Fanny Burney.

These are nearly all homeschooled kids.

I don't quite understand directing children away from an interest because of career prospects. I don't believe the "art history majors will end up as Starbucks baristas" trope; I know too many people who majored in philosophy, classics, music, literature, and even art history who are supporting themselves and their families, some in jobs directly related to their college majors, others not--but not apparently hampered in their professional lives by their choice of major. If they have a raging talent for, and interest in, a field that justifies pursuing it at the university level, I can't imagine trying to dissuade them. I think we often see people who really aren't that great at anything academically, and arguably shouldn't be in college at all, opting for "soft" fields, and this gives the illusion that it's the major, and not the student's abilities, inhibiting job prospects.

Of course this is just anecdata, but my family's experiences reflect this. Dh has for years coached our high school math team, and every year he and the coach(es) for the middle school team encourage the girls in the middle grades to continue competitive math at the high school level, but with limited success. Dh, having three girls, has skin in the game; but every year the fifty-fifty ratio of girls competing in middle school contests drops to only one or two girls at the high school level. The parents report that the girls are still interested in math but can't take the time for competitions because of other conflicting activities which they prefer. Of course I'm sure it contributes to the phenomenon that the girls see a nearly all-male high school team. But it does seem like the girls have a wider range of interests they do equally well at than the boys.

I've been meaning to get around to reading Wolfe for at least a quarter century.

Change of plans for Buckinghamshire: the book I had thought was set in South Bucks -- The Return of the Soldier -- turns out to be set just a little further off, in Harrow Weald. And it was boring me. So it's Robert Louis Stevenson and his walks through the Chilterns instead.

Dh likes to watch Star Trek re-runs; I love when they're trying to get information about somebody and the captain says, "Is there anything at all in the Starfleet Database?" "I don't know, Captain, give me a few hours to look." How I want someone to say "Do you want his Facebook page or the Wikipedia article on him?" They do however all seem to wear Bluetooths on their chests, so that's something.

Yes! I did, too! I was wondering why the name "Laubach" sounded so familiar. Thank you! Btw, celebrity close encounters department -- adult literacy tutoring in Austin was how I got to meet (briefly) Barbara Bush. tuesdayschild -- thanks for the Buckinghamshire suggestions. I did consider Three Men in a Boat, but I read it not that long ago. I think I may go for the Rebecca West. If I ever get out of Camelot.

This week I finished the Strugatsky Brothers' Monday Starts on Saturday, a satire on Soviet research institutions that actually works pretty well for research institutions everywhere. Much lighter in tone than Roadside Picnic, which is more popular in the U.S., Monday Starts on Saturday is apparently their most popular book in Russia. The title is meant to ambiguously refer to Institutions' unreasonable work expectations but also the avid work habits of dedicated scientists. This is the first English translation of the uncensored book. Also, quite accidentally, I completed my Berkshire BritTrip read with The Merry Wives of Windsor, which I actually read because we're about to go see the city's summer Shakespeare production. It's like a test for the dedicated: will you sit for hours in the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes for free Shakespeare? Why yes, yes we will. Still reading Malory: on to volume 2 this week. The many, many, many jousts are all running together. Please, can't somebody just get to where he's going without running straight into a couple of knights at a fountain whom he then has to fight with?

Of course we all want to read more Hardy! Right? Thanks for the clarification on Hertfordshire. Now I can read about Graham Greene's miserable childhood in Berkhamstead.

For Mother's Day, I want to be woken up at 6 a.m. by a well-meaning Wee Girl who is too eager to bring me breakfast in bed to wait another hour. I want dh to offer to take me running on a 5-mile loop around Town Lake before it gets hot, since I'm up already. I want a box of super-dark chocolates from Great Girl, who loves them, which I'll divide up among the lot of them because I don't really eat chocolate anymore but they haven't noticed. It will all be perfect. Someday I'll have all the things I think I actually want instead, and it will be very sad.

Strep cleared up any, Amy? We hope chicken pox and measles aren't waiting in the wings. If anyone is still looking for West Riding of Yorkshire, I just realized that, since that's where the Brontës were from, Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Emily Brontë is surely (ha ha) set there. And does anyone have any suggestions for upcoming Buckinghamshire or Herefordshire? All I have for the former is Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier, and for the latter, Auden's poem "The Malverns," and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey." ETA: Hey, Amy & Sandy: Is "Herefordshire" a typo on the Ichnield Way list of counties? Herefordshire is way west, next to Wales; Hertfordshire is the county between Buckinghamshire and Essex. And there's a book I'd already been planning to read set in Hertfordshire.

Was it the Tolkien-edited one?

Glad his eye is okay! Definitely a satisfying read. So often there's a point in a book where you think, "Dang that boy needs shootin"--but so rarely does a character step up to the plate that obligingly. Well, Malory thought Camelot was in Winchester -- he mentions it in Book 2 -- but did the "Gawain" author? Not my call ... [looks around for Amy and Sandy]

For North Yorkshire, I read St. Ælred of Rievaulx's classic Spiritual Friendship (Rievaulx was a famous abbey in North Yorkshire), but I considered Stoker's Dracula (set in Whitby) and A. S. Byatt's Possession (set in Goathland).

We watched a few episodes, but I can't get past the detective's Glaswegian accent. I haven't been to Shetland, but I've been to Orkney, and the Orcadians sound like Scots with vaguely Norwegian accents, so I bet the Shetlanders don't sound like they're from the mean streets of Strathclyde.

Lots of book still to go on my Hampshire read, Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, so time to pick up the pace. Arthurian tales of adventure from 1485, set in Camelot (Winchester). This isn't the Tales of King Arthur we read to our kids: The past really is a foreign country. Middle Girl selected another book for me the via the True Randomness Generator: this time one of dh's books, Monday Starts on Saturday, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. While I've reserved to myself veto power over any of dh's books that get selected, I decided to give this one a try, as I liked Roadside Picnic; and we have the nucleus of an unofficial book group started at church (we read books not by saints or G. K. Chesterton ... shhhhh ...), in which the Strugatsky brothers are popular, I thought it would be companionable to join in.

Totally understood. Nothing kills my desire to read like promising to read.

I have 700 pages left of my Hampshire book, so a few days would be fine. Maybe even more than a few.

I don’t think I could re-read RotN soon, as I taught it to Middle Girl and two of her friends last year, and squeezed every last bit of AP-prep juiciness out of it. I love Jude the Obscure, but have read it twice. What about Mayor of Casterbridge? Or, in the true BaW spirit, everyone could read her own Hardy, and we’ll meet on the windswept moor to discuss them.

I already love your pastor. Yes, let’s have more Hardy reading this year. There are several unread ones waiting on my shelf. Any plans for your next Hardy?