Juliet, Naked by Nick HornbyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have an uneven relationship with Nick Hornby's writing, finding some of it terrific and some dull or so negative that I abandon it midstream. Juliet, Naked, is one of the terrific ones: I read it on the plane and during a recent weekend away, and it was so funny in parts that I alarmed my fellow travelers by laughing aloud. The depiction of the middle-aged "music nerd" and the effect of the internet on such groups of obsessives is trenchant and insightful: when I read it I thought, "You know, he's absolutely right!" even as I laughed and winced (As a knitter, I dabble in an internet-enabled obsessives group myself). The depiction of the depressed seaside town is lightened by the switches to the American setting, and the supporting characters, especially Jackson, Tucker's son, are interesting. My one quibble is that the end of the book seems rushed: the cast of characters assembled in London is dismissed too quickly, leaving both the reader and the plot feeling a little unfinished. Still, overall, I'd recommend Juliet, Naked, especially to people mature enough to laugh at themselves and to remember what life and hobbies were like before the internet began to shape our experience and our obsessions.
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Well, it's Saturday morning, grey but not very cold, and I am in my "where'd the time go?" mode. It's been a tough week with various family stresses and Nate's hell week leading up to last night's wonderful performance of "The Sound of Music".
Today I finally made (with some alterations due to laziness and/or lack of ingredients) these wonderful pumpkin scones, which are not very flaky but are certainly light and very delicious. Soon I will . . . well, probably. . . get myself out for a run, and then shower and go have lunch with my beloved friend Lori at a newly reopened lunch place downtown. Yay! I am hoping that I might also tuck a nap into my afternoon, but I'm not at all sure, things being as they generally are. I do have AP correcting to do, but with one week left before our week off from teaching (two professional days; kids are gone for the whole week), there is a sense of roominess which is not always the case!
To my delight, I have finished stealth hat #1 and am about 1/5 through stealth hat #2, and I also spent a happy hour and a half at school on Thursday working on the stealth sewing project--got all the fabric ironed and one pair of pants pinned and partially cut out. I'll have to up my speed if I'm going to get this done without much stress, but once "they" are all cut out, I think I can production-line things pretty fast. I still need to get pocket fabric, though. Hmmmm.
So. Onwards.
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