Page or Reed? "Read" ergo sum

I used to babysit for this woman who had a friend who was having a baby who announced that it would be named Page (girl) or Reed (boy).

And speaking of books...

I've been reading Jose Saramago's "The Double" for the past few days. I don't usually read books that are translated from the original works because, while I appreciate the effort of some excellent translators to get great works out there to the masses, I just think that it doesn't work well to rework the original words of the author, even for such a noble cause. It's for this reason that I am ashamed to admit that I have not ever been through an entire book of Gabrielle Roy. I know, it's like blasphemy, eh? Get over it.

So maybe it was last year that I read the synopsis of Saramago's "All the Names" and picked it up. Naturally, I was attracted to the idea of working in the area of vital statistics, because it's closer to my own experience than many other working situations featured in novels. It was dark, definitely a difficult read, but overall a positive reading experience. I tried out "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" but it didn't work. The topic wasn't enough for me to get over the complete lack of appropriate punctuation, which I will not fault Saramago for, because of my lack of knowledge of Portugese and how it might be properly translated into English.

But now I'm onto "The Double" and perhaps rather ironically, it feels like a double of "All the Names". Creepy loner guy gets obsessed with something which takes over his life. For now I'm going with it...we'll see. Finished "Children of the Day" by Sandra Birdsell before this. I really liked "The Russlander" and this one was equally good, though I prefer "Russlander". Overall she's a great writer.

Far too many books on my shelves, and far too little time. I still have Stephen Lewis to devote some time to as well.