Oddverse.com

David Mingolla is struggling to survive

I'm aware that the quality of the content here has slipped recently. I've got things to write about, but I guess I don't necessarily feel like writing them.

For example, for about ten minutes this morning I was going to write about the great dream that I had last night, except it was very morbid at the same time as it was life-affirming, in a very Louis-de-Bernieres-back-when-he-was-great way, so instead I'm going to write about the most exciting thing I did last weekend.

I rearranged a book case.

Well, three of them. I had all the books out, I moved them around, I moved the shelves around, and I'm left with a much better organised bookcase.

Very boring, I know.

But I realised as I did it that there were books in there that I have had for over a decade without even opening beyond the first time that I read them. Books like Lucius Shepard's Life During Wartime, which I must have read when I was about 19. I thought it was flawed, sure, but I also thought that its strengths made up for its flaws. I guess it would be classified as Cyberpunk, with some large chunks of magical realism thrown in, largely helped by its South American setting. It's the sort of book that I recommended to people at the time, and bought for a few people as a gift.

However, it's a book that I'm not quite ready to pick up again, not quite ready to re-read. Frustrating.