Ready to read

And so the rains have arrived on Rocky Top.

The meteorologists are now saying we might get lucky, that this sudden squall has weakened, might save us from the Category 3-like pressure that shocked the Midwest earlier this afternoon. What a strange day. We set a record here -- mid-80s in late October. Crazy.

I am hunkered down at the house, tired of the television, ready to read.

For some reason, I can't get Pat Conroy out of my mind. Maybe it is because I finally got around to reading "Beach Music" when we were in Florida back in September. Maybe it's because he is releasing a new book, "My Reading Life," next week. Maybe it's for no reason at all.

I keep vowing that I'm going to give up Conroy. He keeps writing the same book. He's too wordy. His books are like mini mental breakdowns, full of pain and passion and misery and mysticism.

But, heck. He's such a good wordsmith. And he tells a good tale.

I think I'm going to like this next one. It's a memoir, about the writers and the writing that shaped his life. One can relate. Don't know where I'd be without Hemingway, Hamill and the Hardy Boys.

I've told you before how much it bothers me that people don't read books anymore. It scares me for one thing. Occupational hazards and all that. But it also makes me wonder what kind of society we've become.

Plus it's so much fun.

Maybe I will venture into the Spanish Civil War later tonight with Papa Hemingway's Robert Jordan. Maybe I will "Look Homeward, Angel" with Thomas Wolfe. Or maybe I'll find myself walking once again along the Carolina coast with Conroy.

Whatever I choose, the journey will be mine, singular, solitary, satisfying.

Such is the pleasure of a good book on a rainy Tuesday night.