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Election Night

 "Kafkaesque" means "oppressive and nightmarish," and last night did earn the title. How surreal to stare at the droning CNN man, and to imagine that a report on one percent of a state’s vote total counts as news.

Someone on the NYT website vowed to "take my dog for a walk and just check the news in the morning," and this helped me.

My own version of "dog-walking" was to visit Book Lovers Cafe, a group on Facebook I very much like. These are introverted folks who enjoy fast-paced blockbuster books, and they write about their book-love, and sometimes their coffee-love, alongside photos of book nooks, individual book stacks, and snazzy bookmarks. These are my people.

A nice feature of Book Lovers Cafe is that someone will occasionally ask a quick "ranking/preference" question, and you can fire away, and then move on. Here are my recent replies (using just the top of my head).....

Saddest Book I've Ever Read: Ariel Levy, "The Rules Do Not Apply" (....with an honorary wreath for "The Debut," by Anita Brookner)

Weirdest Book I've Ever Read: Janet Malcolm, "In the Freud Archives"

Best Stephen King Book, and Why: "On Writing," because it is passionate and sincere

Good Theater Book: "Razzle Dazzle," by Michael Reidel

Top Psychological Thriller: "Dark Corners," by Ruth Rendell

Effective Recent Spooky Book: "Fair Warning," by Michael Connelly

Happy reading....
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