One of the views from my reading room.
This is another--waiting to pick up Josie. On this day I was third in line--all it took was leaving the house at 12:45. (School is out at 2:45 but it's usually 3 before the children are escorted out to the cars.)
It could be awful but it's not. It's an almost two-hour block of uninterrupted reading time. The past two days, the air has been fragrant with the intoxicating smell of new mown hay (see first picture.)
Freed of distractions, I can really concentrate. I managed to read a book I just couldn't get into some years ago, despite its incredible reviews. The meticulously researched story of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 is alternated with the also meticulously researched story of a serial killer who picked his victims from folks (mostly young women) in town for the fair.
It was a beautifully done rendering of a time and place--but I had the uneasy feeling that I was hurrying through the welter of detail about the fair to get to the 'good parts' about the serial killer. It made me a little ashamed of myself for such a prurient interest. Next up--Lies My Teacher Told Me--Oh, boy! Eye-opening critique of traditional history books as used in American schools.
