Books, Games, Food, Thanksgiving

I haven't done much reading (or book shopping!) so far this month. Earlier this month I devoured The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman in 24 hours. (Here's a link to Julia Rothman's wonderful post about The Principles of Uncertainty on her Book By Its Cover blog. It includes photos.) I also went to a book event/signing for Maira on the 7th, which was fantastic. She also absolutely has the best signature ever:

Signed "The Principles of Uncertainty"

I finished The Kite Runner last week. It was great all around - well written, fascinating, moving. It's no wonder everybody and their dog loved it.

Now I'm reading Atonement by Ian McEwan, since I want to finish it before seeing the movie. I'm still undecided as to how much I like Ian McEwan's writing style, but I do love his characters. He's able to describe their thoughts perfectly and realistically; it's not a big mystery why he wins so many awards. I'm not sure if it makes sense to not be crazy about a style in general but really like the character description, but there you go.

Here's an interesting short interview with Heidi Pitlor, the new series editor for the Best American Short Stories series. She talks about the process of going through thousands of short stories during the year, and how her collaboration with the 2007 guest editor, Stephen King, worked.
 
Last and most important, I'm super excited for Thanksgiving. Two of my very dear college friends are visiting for the long weekend - Emma and Josh - now living in Clinton, MA and Washington DC, respectively. I bought Wits & Wagers  and Apples to Apples for us all to play while we're trying to digest massive amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, homemade cheesecake, homemade pumpkin pie, cupcakes, candy, and tacos. And Uno. We must play cut-throat, high intensity Uno, it's a tradition.

This weekend Ryan and I did an ungodly amount of grocery shopping for the upcoming long weekend. For fun, I took a picture of just a small portion of our "harvest."

Thanksgiving Groceries

Coming soon: pictures of the rather odd Thanksgiving decorations that I created and installed in our apartment, as well as "making-of" photos, cooked food, our table, and general merriment.