One of the few redeeming qualities about working at Joseph-Beth is books--free books. We had our fall rep breakfast last week and I walked away with over $200 worth of books: actual, hardcover books. All for just getting up early in the morning with bad coffee and doughnuts. Some of what I got:

-"The City of Falling Angels" by the guy who wrote "Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil"
-"Julie & Julia" some girl cooks Julia Child's recipe book front-to-back
-"The Children's Blizzard"-one of those little incidents in history that were awful, but were barely mentioned in the news
-"The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear" -a weird mix of fantasy, myth, fairy tale, adventure, weirdness all in one
..among others

Whether I'll actually read these remains to be seen.

Here's what else I'm reading:
-Christ Plays in 10 Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson
-Three Short Novels by Wendell Berry
-Lance Armstrong's War (not my typical genre, but this book is amazingly literary)
-The Narnian
-Albion by Peter Ackyroyd
-Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Why do I do this to myself?