Book Series

I can get a little manic about reading a book series in order. When a panicked mom stands in front of me at the reference desk, tearing her hair out because book three of her kiddo's favorite series is in, but he hasn't read number two yet, we don't have it, and he won't read them out of order, I side with the kid. Then every once in a while I throw caution to the wind and just read the book that's at hand, no matter where it stands in publication order. And it always bites me in the butt.

I realized that this week, not while reading the seventh book in Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street series, but in reading the first one. Bertie Plays the Blues enchanted me, gave me respite from the chaos that reigns here most of the time. It was new. It was on the shelf. It came home with me and I devoured it. Hmmm. Had I read any others in that series? Went back and looked, and no, so let's get number one. I spent so much time trying to remember what each character was doing in number seven and I almost missed the charm of number one, titled 44 Scotland Street. Finally, I reined myself in, reminding myself that I never remember endings of books anyway, so I can always go back and read it again to put things in order. But I'm not doing it again. Until next time.

The lure of garden tomatoes is so strong. We've had three ripen, with about 20 more on the vine, most of them very green. I don't suppose it does any good to stand out there and try to shame them into ripening, but the idea's tempting!

And our pool is down. A cat-claw puncture meant it wasn't holding air for long. A new one, a little bigger, is on it's way. So we're without a pool until next weekend. We'll survive, and have something to look forward to!