Okay, So I Haven't Read The Latest Harry Potter

Hi darlings, meet Rick, the first guy who messaged me in the ST - gosh- 8 years ago. You can find his cool international escapades documented in: http://rick162.blogspot.com He's asked me to start a book list, so here goes:

Last 5 Books I've Read:
1. The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco
I've adored Eco since The Name of the Rose... When the Da Vinci Code came along, it just seemed like a poor cousin of Eco's genre.

2. A Brief History of Nearly Everthing, by Bill Bryson.
Coincidentally, both Eco and Bryson talked about the efforts of 18 century man to chart the Earth's longitudes and latitudes by stars and nagivation, though one is fiction and and the other not.

3. How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, by Larry King.
At times autobiographical, it is filled with useful interviewing tips, on how to get words out of strong-and-silent types and when to just cut your losses and find the next interviewee.

4. If Andy Warhol Had A Girlfriend, by Alison Pace.
Glossy art-world chick lit. Mentioned in a previous entry.

5.Pop Internationalism, by Paul Krugman.
He injects wit and clarity into a field dominated by multi-syllabic bores - economics.

Honorable Mention:
Ok, National Geographic isn't a book, but do go read the June issue. Its story of Zheng He was so spellbinding, I forgot to get off the bus and missed my stop.

No, I'm not going to buy Harry Potter. Simply because by next month, there will be so many used copies floating around. Do feel free to recommend any good reads.

Alone in the City

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind." - Humphrey Bogart.

For the past week, I've been living the life of a single girl in the city by default. And for the next week too, as Boy's away doing his thing for the country.

Maybe it's age, maybe this town isn't as fun as it used to be. All the glammy single-girl things I've planned to do this week - shoe-shopping, gyming, girly drinks, more shoe-shopping - have come to nought.

When you don't have someone waiting for you to get off work, I learnt, you just stay at work until... forever. Before you know it, it's Saturday. Just as well. It's way cheaper to be a workaholic than a shopaholic. (Though I'd rather be neither.)

Ok, Take 2. Maybe I'll try harder at my Independent Woman act next week.

Meanwhile, my oldest, clinkiest friends are quitting all round me. They're my kind of people - mates who could have taken higher-paying fluff jobs (what an oxymoron) elsewhere, but simply cannot bring themselves to.

Who live to write rather than write to live. Who cannot stand people talking obsessively about their pets, and will tell them so. Who would like it if guys bought them diamonds, but failing that, would go out and buy them anyway. Who think that throwing a major wedding party for hundreds of people they don't care for is a huge waste of Moet. Wherever they're writing from in future. I wish them only the best.