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Following
Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
Piper in the Woods: A Short Science Fiction Novel
Well, for some weird reason, I feel compelled to read books involving a Piper. Sometimes, the Piper is the author, such as H. Beam Piper or Harold Piper (generally known as Hal), and sometimes there's a Piper in the title, such as Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill or this particular work of science fiction. This was a mildly interesting science-fiction story. It seems that there is a problem on an asteroid, Y-3, where there is a base employed to check incoming spacecraft for germs, viruses and such noxious things. Well, the people on the asteroid have begun to stop working. They just spend their days lying out in the sun. They claim to have become plants. The Pipers in the woods have trained them to become plants. They can now do nothing else. Dr. Henry Harris is dispatched to investigate. It was a fun enough story and not overly long.
