The Sunday Salon: The joy of choosing what to read

Good morning Saloners! It's been a few weeks since I've done any kind of blogging, though I did have a strong desire to post my I am Malala review this past week. I am slowly beginning to recover from my one-hobby-only obsession phase (knitting this time) and doing other things too. My husband loves to say that when I get involved with a hobby, I am fully involved in it - there is nothing else I can direct my attention to. I always take that as a compliment, though I know he is trying to tell me that I need to focus on my other responsibilities (I pretend I don't know that's what he is actually trying to tell me). Still, it's good to be over that phase and just try to be more disciplined with my hobbies. Knitting during Fall-Winter only is what is getting me re-obsessed during these months.

Anyways, it is nice to start thinking of books. I decided that the books I had borrowed from the library had to go back right away and that I need to ignore my read-now shelf (ARCs, e-galleys, planned books). I also decided to stop all my currently-reading books that have remained... currently-reading... and just pick the first book that catches my fancy from my shelves. I have some ideas on what books I want to read - mostly books or authors I have been hoping to read but never got to, such as Oryx and Crake, Cloud Atlas, and A Fine Balance. I have also been thinking of re-reading the Harry Potter books, mainly thanks to playing HP trivia in my phone's Quizup app, but it's been years since I last read those books and they always feel to me as the perfect Fall season books to read. I actually have visions of sitting in a stone tower with a nice warm fire in the hearth and a cup of hot chocolate beside me and reading the books. Yes, I'm borrowing this scene heavily the HP books themselves.

Luckily, I am listening to audiobooks every day and that makes me feel that I am still reading. I am almost finishing up Switching Time - a fascinating account of a psychiatrist's treatment of a woman with Multiple Personality Disorder. This woman had 17 alters, all born to help her deal with child abuse, rapes, and harassment by religious cult members. It's horrifying listening to all the ways she has been tortured - it made me wonder whether it is all invented, but a person doesn't create 17 alters out of pure fun. The book could have benefited from some better editing but it makes for great listening. I will be talking more about this in my review, but I have been itching to mention this book here for a while because of how much it has intrigued me.

I don't have any major plans for today. We woke up feeling the season's shill. Our thermostat is still set to the AC mode but it isn't running since it's too cold most of the time. I'm happy to welcome the cold (hey, I'm knitting, aren't I?) but I feel that it has been a really short summer. I'm expecting this week to be very busy at work, and next weekend we are driving to New Jersey to meet some friends and drop the husband's father closer to the NY airport. For the rest of the day, I'm hoping to catch up on my Feedly, do some knitting, and start reading something. How's your day/week going?