Presently, it is past 3AM and I am having a rare case of summer insomnia. I decided that I may as well send a few emails and write the Sunday Salon for today.

This week, I read only a tiny bit of The Name of the Rose. I like it, but I have been severely sidetracked by work and other things this week. I plan to read the book today (after I sleep that is), and start another one for variety, probably one of the nonfiction memoirs that is due this week from the library.

My library TBR pile is out of control again. As I mentioned last week, I have been going through a lot of guidebooks with reference to an imminent move I will make in the near future. Guidebooks do not necessarily need to be read from cover to cover, but I now have several novels set in this place (not excluding the couple that I own personally). While novels are not the best travel guides, I like the idea of preparing myself on a journey by reading fictional stories of people who live in this town as I will. Have you ever done this? Does it make it even more worthwhile for a trip or move?

I will end this insomniac edition of Sunday Salon with a quotation:

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. Public libraries depend on voluntary contributions. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” — Carl Sagan, Cosmos.

Here is to some sleep and lots of reading for the rest of Sunday. Have a good week, everyone.