July 28, 2008: Reading

Today I finished reading Bill Bryson’s “Shakespeare: The World As Stage” which I got from Audible.  Listening to the book reminded me that we had hoped to have been able to have gone to the Stratford Festival in Ontario as there are doing several shows this year that I really wanted to see including: The Music Man, Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost and All’s Well That Ends Well.  We had been hoping to make a long weekend of it sometime in July or August and see several of the shows back to back but with the baby coming and the house underway it is very unlikely that we could do that.  It would have been a great year to see several shows.  At least I am not missing a performance of my favourite Shakespearean play As You Like It.

Today was extremely busy at the office.  My morning was completely crazy.  It was rather exhausting.  I didn’t have a chance to even eat lunch (or breakfast for that matter) until after two thirty in the afternoon.  Dominica’s day was quite busy as well, and she was quite worn out by the time that she came home.  She did manage to spend her lunch break doing some much needed grocery shopping.

While busy, my day was almost entirely uneventful.  I started listening to Mark Twain’s “A Murder, A Mystery & A Wedding” late this evening.  It has been in my Audible queue for a while.  I really only selected it because it is narrated by Garrison Keillor.  It is pretty short and I do appreciate the importance of classic American literature of which there is only so much.  Mark Twain is a great author.

Recently, Dominica and I have been discussing literature a bit because of the baby on the way.  It is interesting to think about what literature our child may enjoy and experience.  Dominica was a born reader – far in excess of myself.  I liked to read and read many great books but nothing in comparison to her.  I, however, read a greater variety of books and enjoyed more of the classics like “Little Women”, “Johnny Tremain” and “1984”.

When I was young, my literary tastes tended towards classic Americana (in addition to my obvious love of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicle of Narnia”.)  Authors that I read the most, in my memory, included Louisa May Alcott, Irene Hunt, Madelaine L’Engle, L. M. Montegomery (yes, she was Canadian) and others.  Unlike Dominica or I, though, our child will have access to audio books throughout their life as well which really didn’t become possible for us until we were in our twenties.  The only “books on tape” that I knew as a child were ones that my mother read to me and recorded while she read.  Having commercial books on “tape” wasn’t something that I could afford until I was much older.  Very occassionally we would get a book on tape from the library when I was young like “Lyle the Crocodile” and “The Jungle Book” but those were by far the exception to the rule.

I spent most of the evening working in the living room while Dominica watched Frasier.  It was a pretty lazy night.  Andy was up late working so I stayed up to make sure that he didn’t need anything.  I am working the early morning shift tomorrow but then taking Dominica into work at seven.  Tomorrow afternoon we are going for the house inspection!  Hopefully there will be pictures soon after.

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