readers' advisory

That's the fancy librarianese term for recommending books to people. It's something most of us do all of the time, either because we've enjoyed a book and want others to read it so we can discuss it with them or because we hated the book, secretly hate the person and want to make him suffer.

I often recommend a book called The Sparrow for the first reason. It's by Mary Doria Russell and it touches on a lot of things I like to read and contemplate: science fiction, space travel, the human condition, faith and the church. There's a second book called Children of God that's a lot harder to read and makes you suffer while you're reading it but if you stick with it you'll be glad. I'll recommend that one with the above caveat. One of my friends, like me, gets some glee out of suggesting a certain couple we know watch films we know they'll dislike, not understand or at least wonder why we recommended it to them. If, at the end of a film, we look at each other and either shrug or say "that's a wrist slitter and a half" then it goes onto the list. It's sort of like telling a devotee of romantic comedies that she'll enjoy the tragic love story in the latest David Lynch film.

Right now I'm reading a couple of books: Justice Hall, which is the latest Mary Russell mystery; Stripper Lessons, which is by the author of Leaving Las Vegas; and I've got Stiff waiting for me as soon as I finish one of the others. Of course I still have a textbook on goat science awaiting my attention and my bathroom reader which is a compilation of Anne Sexton's letters.

This probably says way too much about me, so perhaps you'll forget what you just read. You're grooooowing veeeeery sleeepppy....