Once or twice a week my husband makes evening plans with friends. I'm almost always invited and I almost always decline. In fact, I feel a bit guilty because sometimes I actually like it when he's out of the house in the evening, even though he's already at work all day. You see, the evenings are my only free time, and free time is reading time.
So, what have I been reading during those rare times of solitude, you ask? Well, I finished reading Alice and The Girl with the Gallery, and I've started reading The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson (the author of Everything Bad is Good for You). I haven't read his previous books since in-your-face bestsellers turn me off, but I may reconsider as The Ghost Map has most of the elements that I look for in non-fiction: logical thought, good writing, interesting subject matter, and educational content. The key here is the good writing. So many people hate reading history, and while I'm not one of those people, I prefer a compelling read to a dry one.
I also read an Unbridled Books manuscript by Timothy Schaffert called Devils in the Sugar Shop. Even though it was work-related reading, it didn't feel like work. I have yet to read Schaffert's The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, but hopefully it's as good as Devils (which will be out next year).
And what might I be reading the next evening I'm alone? One of these: The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice by Allen Ginsburg, Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America by Mark Ehrman, The Book as Art by Krystyna Wasserman, Satyr Square: A Year, A Life in Rome by Leonard Barkan, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, or another Unbridled manuscript. Or maybe one of the 11 issues of The New Yorker that a friend brought by this past weekend.