Baggage

I have to lose 5 kilos before heading to the airport. Don't break out the laxatives - it's not me, but my luggage.

What to jettison? Difficult. However, that bottle of guaro can go, it's revolting, and probably my Harry Potter y el Misterio del Principe seeing as Salamander failed to print about 20 of the versos so I missed out on important plot development. Good thing I'd read it in English first, eh readers? Plus a couple of rubbish books that I have no intention of reading/using ever again, that utterly pointless insect repellent, shampoo/conditioner, but everything else has to stay. And I'll just have to pack my rucksack strategically... hmm. This is annoying.

My summer is nearly over. Very strange indeed. But good, in many, many ways - I cannot believe I'm looking forward to going back to school, but there you go. September always fills me with optimism, and as my dear JKS says, the beauty of academic life is that you get to make TWO sets of resolutions every year, if you don't count those made on your birthday (and I also make resolutions then...)... This is the year I'll get fit, I won't leave everything (outlining!!!) to the last minute, I'll be more prepared, I'll read more thoroughly, I won't work on Sundays, I won't piss around on IM or the internet during classes. Yeah, right.

But my new worry is that I have to choose the next bookclub book and, honestly, I am fretting about it like you would not believe. I want to choose a good one, that people will love, etc etc, and think of me as a genius. AAARGH.

So I have narrowed it down to a couple of choices, I think, from the Orange Shortlists from the last couple of years. Why? Because I think reading books by women is great, essentially, and the Orange list is a way to keep track of the genuinely good books out there. Furthermore, I have read some glorious books thanks to that - Purple Hibiscus (which made me bawl), Property (an incredible illustration of failure to walk in another's shoes, not realising one's own hypocrisy - incredible book), Fingersmith (which is still one of my all time favourites and one of the most genuinely shocking books I have read), Fugitive Pieces (which I bought for M , the beautiful, haunting and glorious Unless by Carol Shields, and the utterly wonderful, marvellous, Small Island, which won its year and the best of the Orange Prize winners, and is one of the most amazing books I have ever read, utterly beautiful.

Have narrowed it down to one of these:

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I'm not sure which yet, to be honest. The first sounds grand particularly because she lives and works in Sheffield, so a tie there, obviously. The second sounds good - teenage pregnancy, convents, sexual repression - my favourites, obviously. And the third because it won a Pulitzer, and I have always meant to read Housekeeping and never got round to it, but want to, so very very much. Given that, actually, why don't I just choose that? It's only 224 pages... good bookclub length (hence no Sarah Waters, sadly, particularly as I couldn't bear to read Affinity, one of her shortest books, again, it was so very sad and you knew exactly what was coming to our heroine, just not how...).

So there you go. HELP PLEASE. Although it looks increasingly like I have made up my own mind by writing this blog entry. Huzzah!