Tonight we had dinner at the Warners. Gage and Katie had a great time playing. Even though Gage has a lot of the same toys, he looks at everything as though it's brand new. Puzzles me. I'm glad they get along though.
On the way home I stopped by half price books. I got a couple of interesting books, but the one that I'm extremely happy about is "The History of Early Rome" by Titus Livy. It may not sound like a prestigious book, but it represents the 100th book from the Easton Press list "The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written" So, I now own all 100 of these books.
Don't get excited. I said own not read. I haven't taken an accurate count of the one's I've read yet. Perhaps I'll update you on that at another time.
I did read Songbook by Nick Hornby. He's the author of High Fidelity, About A Boy, etc. It was an interesting take on pop music from all walks of the genre. There were a few songs that I'm going to have to track down. I was a little disappointed in the editor of the book. When you put together a book of critiques, essays, short stories, or any short form writing you have to make sure that the writing tricks aren't showing. A writer will find a phrase that they like, or a certain comparison and they use it whenever the mood strikes them. And, although Hornby isn't a hack who uses the same trick over and over, he did use one comparison twice within the context of the book and I'm surprised that the editors didn't catch it. In two different essays he mentions the lyrics of the song covering a lot of ground and says "You'd be hard pressed to find that much material covered in most first novels by beginning authors." Just kind of threw me.
Back to dinner, which was very good, in case you were wondering. I got to peruse Randy's legos and drool over that which I cannot acquire just yet. Man, why do I have to be a responsible adult. If I was an alcoholic I wouldn't think twice about spending an entire paycheck on Stoli. Perhaps I can get diagnosed with legoitisism. It's a rare genetic disorder that predisposes the victim to have to purchase legos at least twice a week. I'm just sayin'.