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Sunday Matters

Strange title for this post, huh? Is it possible to sprain your eyes from too much eye rolling? This past week was a blur. When I really think about it, nothing huge happened. Just a bunch of tiny things to set the eyes rolling:

Teen left for choir tour. Routine was off because of it. He comes back later tonight.
I was told that I have to change offices at work. No more shameless reading spot. No more working in the library building. This is rather huge. I’ve been here for a really long time. Not sure how my early mornings will work now. I move in 2-3 weeks and they don’t know where I am going yet.
The Girl did something to her wrist while high jumping. Then she had something going on with HER eye. The drama!
Still cannot figure out my comment issue with WordPress. They can’t figure it out either but I am unable to respond by phone at all, and when I respond via desktop, all of my email header stuff continues to be included. It’s a serious drag because I love to reply to comments.

There’s more but I am done with it all. Ready to start a new week.

Right Now:

I am sitting in my track pants and attempting to be a functioning human being. Coffee helps. We will hit church later this morning and then the rest of the day is up for grabs. Errands. Probably have to do some since we hit Santa Barbara yesterday but I am in denial about what we have to eat in this house.

This Week:

I will be cleaning out my office space. I’ve moved a lot while working at the university but mostly it’s all been within the same building. Each time I’ve weeded through stuff so I don’t have that much junk but I have a lot of books from all the books sales I’ve taken advantage of. Do you keep a bookshelf of fave reads at work? I do. It’s mostly classics. I am going to be really sad to be leaving the library.

Let’s see, what else? Rehearsals will be back in full swing now that break is over. The Girl has the lap-a-thon for track, SAT prep for The Teen, and I have a hair cut appointment. Oh, I need to pick up my new glasses too. I hope they don’t make me look like a total dork. The Teen said they are hipster-ish.

Reading:

I finished Blue Sun, Yellow Sky. I will write-up my thoughts on that one shortly. I am currently reading The Bullet. It’s starting off so-so for me. I figured it would start with a bang (pun intended) but it’s a little slow for me. At least the beginning is.

I may start We All Looked Up. I need to light a fire under my butt and what better way than to read a story about a mega asteroid coming to Earth?

We All Looked Up

Watching:

I finished Breaking Bad and loved it to pieces. I asked for recommendations on Facebook and so I started White Collar, but it’s a little slow for me! Matt Bomer is easy on the eyes, but I think I will save him for American Horror Story. He’s joining the cast! I settled on Mad Men. It’s hard not to watch that one.

Making:

I picked up some beans to make soup with the leftover ham from last week. I’m sure it will make for some tasty lunches this week.

Grateful for:

I am so glad that we live close to the ocean. Not that close, about a 70 mile drive one way, but close enough to make the trip when we feel like it. After spending the day at the beach yesterday, I feel totally refreshed.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What are you doing today?

The Book of Strange New Things
By Michel Faber
(Hogarth, Hardcover, 9780553418842, October 2014, 512pp.)

The Short of It:

It’s all strange and new and in my opinion, wonderful.

The Rest of It:

After a lifetime of drug addiction and a series of very bad choices, Peter Leigh finally pulls himself together. He finds his soul mate, marries her and becomes a pastor for the local church. Scrubbed of his sin and living what could be called a simple but good life, Peter applies for a position that will take him far, far away from his wife, Bea.

Peter has been chosen to travel to another planet. His mission is to share the word of God with the Oasans, who at times seem to possess human characteristics but look nothing like the humans he’s tended to in the past. Oddly enough, Peter enjoys his assignment on Oasis and takes great pleasure in getting to know its people but he finds that over time, he is beginning to lose sense of reality.

In the mean time, his pregnant wife Bea, is back home trying to live in a world that is falling apart. Climate change, natural disasters and an ever-increasing sense of panic have caused her to lose faith in God and this upsets Peter greatly. Their only form of communication is through The Shoot, which is a very primitive and not always reliable form of text messaging and it’s through these messages that we get the bulk of who Peter is and what he holds dear.

I told another blogger early on, that this book reminded me of The Sparrow, and it does but mostly because it involves an expedition to an unknown planet, is heavy on religious themes and also involves an alien race quite different from our own. The tone is completely different here. More upbeat, and dare I say it? Hopeful.

What makes this novel come alive, are the descriptive passages. I was mesmerized by all that was going on, no matter how mundane. In Faber’s hands, it’s all new and worthy of exploration. I literally hung on every word, which is why it took me so long to read it. But for some reason, the time it took to read it was not important. There are questions to be answered and truthfully, many are not answered by the end of the book, but the “what ifs” pull you through the narrative effortlessly.

I find myself pondering this book daily. I finished it a few days ago, but it keeps coming back to me. Peter’s dilemma of wanting to be in two places at once and us as readers knowing that Earth’s current state is anything but ideal. I finished this when the announcement was made on the news that California has about a year’s worth of water left. A year’s worth! That’s it. What will we do?

That said, The Book of Strange New Things is a powerful, yet quiet read. I don’t recall many of you reading it. Perhaps its 500+ pages discouraged you but there is so much to sink your teeth into. It’s definitely worth your time.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher via Edelweiss.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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