In getting ready to move from our apartment of 25 years to a house in northwest Omaha, I've had the substantial task of packing up my books. Whew! Boxes upon boxes now await transport. Now, this is a very nice task to finally have behind me but I sure miss being able to stroll around the library (or the Reagan Reading Room) and picking out whatever book might be calling out to me for that night's reading.
However, I know better than to have left myself completely without books for a couple of weeks so I purposefully did not pack several to tide me over until the move. They include, of course, my New American Standard translation of the Bible, the selection for the next Omaha Chesterton Society meeting (GKC's provocative collection of essays, Miscellany of Men) and a couple of Nevil Shute novels. One of them, Ruined City, I finished a couple of nights ago and believe I can recommend it as highly as I do the others I've recently read. (See the Nevil Shute post below.)
I also left out Whittaker Chambers classic expose' of Communism, Witness. We have selected that as the first read in the 2005 series of Vital Signs "Book It!" discussions. (More on that later.) And, to make sure I had some purely pleasure novels available, I retained access to several Leslie Charteris' paperbacks I had recently purchased at an old bookshop. For adventure, the quest for justice and fun wordplay, there are few more engaging modern characters as The Saint, Charteris' unique character who he calls the "modern-day Robin Hood" and the "buccaneer of crime." All considered, I should be able to hold out a few more days anyhow before the new library (and the new Reagan Reading Room) are established.
