Outside Reading

No, not the kind of reading you did outside class, but reading while you're outside. That's how I spent this afternoon—under the big maple in my side yard.

Because today was wonderfully clear and not too hot, I took the book I'm currently reading, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, outside to finish.  While the book sounds like it's non-fiction, it's actually a debut novel by Michelle Young-Stone, whom I met at Galax.

The book is about a couple of young folks who are lightning strike survivors and whose lives parallel each other. It's a complicated story about complicated characters—and it's wonderful. From the Publishers Weekly review:

Damaged people inhabit this debut novel: people who have been struck by lightning as well as those who have lost loved ones from death, divorce, drinking, or duplicity. Young-Stone tells parallel stories that hurdle storm after storm headlong into one another. . . .What happens when they do finally meet is inevitable. Young-Stone is a very fine writer who has created a host of endearing losers--young, old, literate, and simple, all full of longing. What she does best is portray the incredulousness of the unlucky.

While I read, several cats kept me company. Camilla sat with me, but others lingered nearby.

 Chloe sort of blended in.

Eddie-Puss wasn't far away.

Spotz was down the hill a bit.

Other cats were probably lurking around, but I didn't see them. When my eyes weren't on the book, they were on the leaves overhead.

. . . or the crape myrtle just down the hill . . .

. . . or the crape myrtle as seen through the maple leaves. . . .

Anyhow, I spent a pleasant afternoon with cats and a good book. I feel lucky to have met the author in Galax, and I highly recommend The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. 

You don't have to have cats to enjoy it.

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