Weekend Reading & Other Stuff

This weekend I might find the time to finish Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. Of course, I'm a last minute Christmas shopper so who knows what might happen.* Dash is not helping me get into the holiday spirit. But neither is Lily. Both teenagers seem to have funky ideas about Christmas.

Right now my non-young adult reading is The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders. I read it years ago when it first came out but for some odd reason I decided to give it a second go around the other day.**

From ReignOfPhil.com:

“I’ll tell you something else about which I’ve been lately thinking!” he bellowed in a suddenly stentorian voice. “I’ve been thinking about our beautiful country! Who gave it to us? I’ve been thinking about how God the Almighty gave us this beautiful sprawling land, as a reward for how wonderful we are. We’re big, we’re energetic, we’re generous, which is reflected in all our myths, which are so very populated with large high-energy folks who give away all they have! If we have a National Virtue, it is that we are generous, and if we have a National Defect, it is that we are too generous! Is it our fault that these little jerks have such a small crappy land? I think not! God Almighty gave them that small crappy land for reasons of His own. It is not my place to start cross-examining God Almighty, asking why He gave them such a small crappy land, my place is to simply enjoy and protect the big bountiful land God Almighty gave us!”
Suddenly Phil didn’t seem like quite so much of a nobody to the other Outer Hornerites. What kind of nobody was so vehement, and used so many confusing phrases with so much certainty? What kind of nobody was so completely accurate about how wonderful and generous and under appreciated they were?

That makes me proud to be an American.

I am also taking the time this morning to read Date them or Hate them: Girls Who Read (brought to my attention by Asheley from IntoTheHallofBooks).

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries.

That being true you haven't gone over which books to give her. That is an entirely different story. I wouldn't give a girl I dated a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. She'd hate me. Or break up with me.***

Also I will probably hit up Talking to Girls about Duran Duran. It looks short so maybe it'll be my Sunday reading.

*I will probably be stabbed for the last pair of faux leather gloves in a Macy's.
**I am not reading it because of the republican debates.
***There is in no way a story here.