Despite my noble intention of going to bed early last night, I stayed up until nearly two in the morning, reading the last half of Life of Pi (yes, more than a decade after everyone else — it’s more than just my blog that I have trouble keeping up with). I’d been reading it in fits and starts, trying to fit in a few pages whenever I could between my family and school obligations. I fell head over heels in love with it right from the start, and immediately began recommending it to my nearest and dearest.

That feeling didn’t last past the halfway point, I’m sorry to say. The wonderfulness of the story unraveled quickly in the second half and I’ve been out of sorts all day mulling over my dissatisfaction with the ending. Bah, I hate it when a good book goes bad, and I especially hate it now, when I don’t really have time to read purely for pleasure. Not only am I disappointed with Life of Pi in particular, but I’m also bummed out that I wasted so much time and energy on a book I didn’t end up loving. (To be fair, I suppose that I still do love the parts I loved early on — I think I’m just going to pretend that second bit never happened.)

After my too-late night, I stayed in bed this morning somewhat later than I’d intended, but I did get myself up and out the door before noon. I spent most of the day reading, in various coffeehouses and also the city library, where I signed up for a library card. One of the very many things that I love about Sweden is that the public libraries truly are public. If I were so inclined, I could visit every library in the country and take out a library card there. Not only that, but it wouldn’t cost me a thing as long as I returned all my borrowed materials on time. Just one more reason you won’t find me complaining about the taxes here — we get plenty of bang for our buck, as far as I’m concerned.