Book Thoughts For the Day

I'm well aware that, as an up-and-coming young Classics major, I should have more significant concerns on the "ancient world" front than choosing between Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood, but I can't help it. I'm delaying the decision. See, I live on Long Island, so Camp Half-Blood seems like an obvious choice, but I prefer Latin to Greek, so maybe I belong with the Romans. But then again, Camp Half-Blood has Percy Jackson. But wait! Camp Jupiter has Leo Valdez! And I prefer the Greek names for the gods, but my current favorite Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar, is set in Rome, and Camp Half-Blood is the original camp, but Camp Jupiter is better-run and more efficient, and . . . and . . . and . . .

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Just in time to comfort me in my Psmith bereavement, someone found a couple of my other favorite offbeat obscure books just lying around somewhere in storage, and I'm tackling them again. Robert McCloskey's Homer Price, which I finished this morning, is always worth a reread. Maybe I'll review it later. Still left to look over: James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks and Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding.

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Wait, weren't Ransom and I on the immediate precipice of something huge? With Out of the Silent Planet seeming to be gathering all its forces, why did I leave it lying on its spine at the eleventh hour? Certainly not because I was bored. I was taking it in in gulps!

. . . You know what? I think that I'm scared. I think that I'm a little afraid of this fantastic runner-of-the-planet that Ransom is about to meet. How like me. But knowing Ransom, I bet he's afraid, too. Don't worry, Ransom, we'll get through this together. I will now plunk myself down on the porch and not lift my head out of the book until our journey is one hundred percent ended. (Well, maybe occasionally I'll lift my head out, but only to take notes.)