Nymph by Francesca Lia Block

I walked out of the break room at work and held up this small, slim volume. "It's book 77 and I'm done with it!"

"What is it?" the children's librarian asked.

I blushed furiously. "Um, it's a dirty book."

And it is! Nymph is Block's collection of erotic short stories, most tying in together. I'm glad this was my second time reading this one because I plowed right through with no attention to where I was. I'm also glad that the sticker from the sending library covered most of the cover. I read it in the car and at work. I read it at home and left it out on the table during a party. I could not have handled explaining my choice.

The first time I read this, honestly, it made me hot. lol. That's awkward to admit on my oh-so-literary blog. The second read it wasn't so much of a problem. Part of that is probably that I am trying to plow through this last 25 books. The stories are still very Francesca Lia Block-ish. There are mermaids. There is magic. There is love. These are really dirty stories about love. Sorry, erotic stories about love.

If you feel like testing the waters, go for it.

So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson

Have we discussed the fact that I love books about books? One of the things that I like about them is that they make me feel a little less along. Look, I know that I love books a lot more than most people. By that mean that I love books more than I love most people and I love books more than most people do. (That would be a random movie reference. Gold star!) Seriously, though, I do love books. I can describe my previous two and current one relationships by the boy's feelings about reading. One thought reading was a waste of time. The next thought the fact that I read was cool and read comic books. This one will spend a Sunday on the couch reading with me, pausing to share a thought or observation.

A lot of the books I have read about books have been written in such a way that I can read each chapter like an article. This one is no different. Each chapter represents a week of the year. Nelson's resolution is to read a book a week for the whole year of 2002. This is really not a big feat for her. She is a chronic reader with beautiful and loaded bookshelves to prove it. She sets out to read a lot of things that she has been meaning to get to but also to let herself read what she wants when she wants it.

Nelson is always honest. She won't tell you that he finished a book when she didn't and, much like Hornby, life gets in the way of her reading and she admits that too. She will tell you if she loved a book but will just as easily tell you that she doesn't like a best seller. She suffers from the same issues I do: too many books, too much hype, and avoids bestsellers. What happens is the same thing that I have felt a number of times. The book Nelson needs seems to find her when she needs it.

Me? I needed this book when I finally got around the reading it. This was book 75 for the year and I had started losing hope. I may not make it this year but I've read a lot more than last year. Plus, now I feel motivated to make my goal again. Nelson's insights got me fired up for another burst of reading. Since then, I've made it through book 76 and part way through book 77.