On a Lighter Note.....

My car will be sitting idle for the next several days while I attend the American Library Association Conference in Washington, DC. More about that later. This means that I'm temporarily deprived of one of my modes of reading. So the question for me was, should I hang on to the cd book of Christopher Buckley's Boomsday and bear the wrath of the library's overdue reminder calls, or should I call it quits.

Remember Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50? Right. I ditched it. I had made a valiant effort though. I actually listened to 6 of the 9 discs! And you know what? I still didn't like any of those crazy characters and didn't really care how their lives turned out. Buckley does have a very wry sense of humor, I'll give him that. Remember Thank You for Smoking? But somehow, the idea of government sanctioned "transitioning" (a euphemism for commiting suicide) at the age of 70 just didn't sit well with this "on the cusp of 60" librarian.

I admit that I had a few laughs at the picture of Cassandra Devine typing away on her nightly blog, calling for a revolution of the gen x's and y's, who are tired of paying into a broken social security system to support the retirees. When the kids broke down the gates at private communities throughout Florida, peopled with gin swilling lotharios and their botoxed wives, descecrating the golf greens, I confess I chuckled. But Buckley just seems to get meaner and meaner as the book goes along. Each politician, clergyman, businessman and 2nd wife is such a blatant caricature of the real thing. Add to this that the book is read by former actress and political activist Janeane Garafolo whose strident voice annoyed me so much on Air America. I just couldn't take it any more.
Maybe, if I wasn't going away, I might have finished Boomsday just out of curiosity. But then, Jane Smiley's Ten Days in the Hills came in for me and, since my trusted friend Maryellen tells me it's great, I'm moving on.