Bookworm

I finish the last book (The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, if you're interested), and close the hardcover with a satisfying thwap, settling back into my chair with the contented sigh of one who has labored long in the consumption of a good meal.

But already my mind is licking its metaphorical chops: the next book, from the library, waits seductively on my desk in the bedroom. This one's a doozy, too - thick and chewy, almost 900 pages, and supposedly one of the best in the last few years.

I should be going to bed, or working on my next story, or, God help me, writing this blog, but I can hear the pages, whispering to me, and I am, as I was when I was eight years old and being scolded by my mother for reading at the dinner table, helpless to resist.