two more books!

this is not the year of fast reading for me! man, i haven't really finished many books, yet i'm always reading!

two more for the completed list, though: a walk in the woods by bill bryson and in the beginning about the king james bible.

if you haven't read a walk in the woods and you like outdoors-y books, this is funny :) lee and i started reading it together while we were hiking the appalachian trail and had a great time reading it. however, the chapter on bears scared lee a little bit. oh, and then we ran into a couple of bears so that didn't help! but it's a fun and funny book. some chapters get a little eco-preachy, but not in a bad way, just in a way that you wonder how it fits in with the book. but we enjoyed it. if you ever go camping or hiking, you'll likely enjoy it :)

in the beginning is something i read for work. next year is the 400th anniversary of the king james bible. the kjv is popular with christian scientists, and most of mary baker eddy's bible quotes come from that translation of the bible. i'll be doing a mini kjv exhibit in my space at the library at the turn of the year. i will also be writing up an "object of the month" for our regular rotating online exhibit. you should check it out--they are pretty interesting. i've written 2 so far: one on a book called gems for you with poetry from new hampshire authors, including mary baker eddy (who was originally from new hampshire), sarah josepha hale, and others; and also a book called chafing dish possibilities by fannie farmer. so you can look for an early kjv there sometime next year. (if you go to the bottom of the page on horses, you can click to all the others there--we have small thumbnails of each object we've done so far.)

anyway, i'm not able to speed read like i've done in the past. sherlock holmes is still occupying a lot of my time. but hey, the collected works i'm reading are 2000 pages! i've got to cut myself some slack here... and also, today i begin reading the actual kjv itself... yup. cover to cover.

interesting fruit...

i just wanted to share this fruit that i bought at russo's market (a place that is like heaven!) about 2 weeks ago. it's called monstera deliciosa.


i bought it because the tag at the market said it tasted like a combination of banana, pineapple and mango. well, i like all those things! however, it didn't say how long it would take to ripen, or anything like that--just something like "eat when the green tiles come off easily with a fork." what it didn't say is that it is one of 2 natural sources of oxalic acid, which is very poisonous to you, and you should only eat it if it's very ripe. so after a couple of days, lee and i were able to pull off a couple of the tiles and ate some of this weird plant. it immediately made my mouth itch and burn, and the back of my throat swelled a bit. no serious problems, but i looked it up right away and wikipedia told me this vital information. lee also had a reaction, though not as severe as me. i had sores on my tongue for 3 days!

so another site also said to wrap the fruit in plastic wrap to encourage it to ripen faster. i did this and then it was fine. lee and i tried it again a week later with much better results. however, i won't be eating it again. it did in fact taste kind of like banana, pineapple and mango all together, but it was "too much." and the texture was soft like a banana, so it was a little weird. it was very perfumy, which was a turn-off for me. but it was an interesting experience!