Season’s Readings

The Lisas celebrate Christmas, which makes this a crazy-busy time of the year, at least for the one of us who won’t be sipping daiquiris poolside… 

 Unlike most families with their hyper-busy schedules, I am raising two adorable little slackers in my own image. Christmas break means no homework for them and no slave driving for me. We can have a week of pure relaxation before Christmas Day. Some of my best-loved authors have published new books recently and my cunning plan was to read them during our week of pajama-wearing sloth. I told myself I wouldn’t crack any of them open till then–I would work on all my tasks instead.

I am virtuously saving Trisha Ashley’s Twelve Days of Christmas until my workload is lighter. This is because I put it on my Christmas list and I won’t have it in my hands until after Christmas. I take credit for planning it this way–leaving the other two titles as my week-before-Christmas reading.

I finished Lois McMaster Bujold‘s Cryoburn  this past Tuesday. I read it in one night. I can’t count the number of responsibilities I ignored that night. They are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach just outside of The Other Lisa’s door.

I started reading All Clear by Connie Willis the day after I finished Cryoburn. I have no will power. I also have no brain power. Willis wrote this fabulously detailed time travel book in two parts. Blackout was the first of the two book series and I read it several months ago. I think I am going to have to read them both again to fully grasp the intricacies of the plot. 

In the end it works out perfectly. If I hadn’t read everything already, I wouldn’t have a chance to re-read it on break. Perhaps this is an example of Connie Willis’s universe in which the space-time continuum is constantly trying to fix mistakes. Or maybe I’m just a slacker.