I created an Italian holiday for myself last week and the weather wasn’t too cooperative!  Very very sultry and a little stormy, so I spent a lot of time inside the cabin with books and movies!  Not a bad way to spend time!  So I read a few books early in the week.  I finished “Water for Elephants,” which I really enjoyed; I read “The Next Thing on My List,” and “Away.” The movies I watched were “Days and Clouds,” “Il Postino,” “The Night of the Shooting Stars,” and “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  The first three were Italian and the first two I’d seen before!  I love “Il Postino.”  And “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  I can watch that over and over again.

I really liked “The Next Thing on my List.”  It was a book I’d picked up several times but couldn’t bring myself to read, because the premise is that a girl named Marissa dies in a car accident.  Too creepy.  Anyway, she has a list of 20 things to do before her 25th birthday – so the girl who was driving the car decides that she needs to complete the items on the list.  It wasn’t a great book, but I like lists so enjoyed it.  I also had the book “Flip-Flopped” by the same author and realized after 50 pages that I’d read it before.  “Away” was a book about an immigrant who learns that her daughter may still be alive so she attempts to get back to Russia via Alaska.  I also have a book of short stories by that author and have read a few throughout the week.

Now I’m reading “Beatrice & Virgil” by Yann Martel (author of the Life of Pi).  It’s weird.  No chapters.  It’s about Henry who is a writer and Henry who is writing a play.  And a donkey named Beatrice and howler monkey named Virgil.  And taxidermy.  And the Holocaust?  I’ll let you know if I figure it out when I’m done.  I’m halfway through it.  And then who knows what will be next.  I still have quite a pile at home and a few more from the library.  So many books.

Nicole Baart is doing an online book discussion about Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and I’d like to join!  Maybe I’ll run to B&N tomorrow and see about it.  I read part of a Donald Miller book and had bought a few but they went down with the flood.  Interesting author.

Well, off to read!