The week that was, and is

I didn't really mean to disappear for a week. It was busy, yes, and I expected it to be, but I did expect to have time to make a virtual appearance too. Didn't happen. As things are wont to be, life goes for a toss right when you are looking at a wonderful vacation. I was in NY this past weekend, and had a fairly good weekend. There was an emergency, because of which I had to extend my 'vacation' by a couple more days, but things are okay now. I am also moving this coming weekend, and I have only just begun my packing, so my next 2-3 days are going to be unenviably busy.

But I've been reading too, a lot in fact. I wonder if the fact that the end of the year is near has anything to do with it or whether being busy is making me churn out non-existent time to spend on reading, but I'm glad either way.

Before starting on my vacation, I read Before I go to Sleep (engrossing, but not as good as I hoped) and the sixth book in the Wimpy Kid series, Cabin Fever (yeah, call me a middle-grader, if you wish, but I just cannot get enough of these books).

At the beginning of my vacation, while half crazed with sleep in the Amtrak train at 6 in the morning, I read a couple of pages of The Night Circus, intending to go back to sleep afterwards. Reading early in the morning is usually my lullaby. But after the couple of pages, I decided that sleep was overrated and went to buy a cup of coffee, because there was no way I could put The Night Circus down. There was just so much awesome magic, thrill, excitement and wonder in this book that I really would happily reread it right away. I finished this book by the next night.

On a whim, I decided to read something relatively unknown next. I found The Silent Land in the Overdrive link on my library's page. This was another book that held my attention all throughout. The idea of two people facing an avalanche, surviving it, and appearing to be the only two people left in the world sounded very intriguing. Were they dead or alive? Were they dreaming or living it fully? Needless to say, I enjoyed this read too, and can't wait to review this one.

By the end of the trip, I was in mood for some nonfiction, and picked up The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. Not only is this book entertaining, it also calls out to the technogeek in me. I came across this book couple of months back at Amy's blog, so I was thrilled when I saw this one in my library's catalog.

As if that wasn't enough, I had to visit The Strand before I left NY. Last year, when I first visited this store, I loved every corner of it - 18 miles of books stretched out before you, isn't that heavenly? Besides, the stacks were so high, that you needed to climb on ladders just to get a book on the top shelf. After a lot of difficult decision-making, I finally bought these four books:

1. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
2. Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
3. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
4. The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

What all this reading means is that I have a ton of reviewing to do. That'll have to wait until next week, until I have moved - books, clothes and moi - into my new apartment, which is just down the road. With my upcoming vacation, and the end-of-the-year busyness, there's just a lot of things to do. Worse, work isn't any less busy.