Comfort Reading
I'm maybe not feeling so good.
I'm really tired, my back is out and my tootsie hurt - they're blistered. And it's 187 Farenheits outside in the Arizona desert and the rocks are melting, so I have to stay inside and breathe air that's full of Cocker Spaniel fur.
I'm not comfortable.
So when I'm not doing anything else, I'm rereading Tunnel in the Sky.
I first read this at least forty years ago, and I haven't reread it for some time now. But the words and phrases come back as I'm reading along - they are etched somewhere in my mind, and it takes no time at all for them to come back to conscious memory. I know and love the characters and situations, and I can read this in a warm fog.
It's comfort reading, and no mistake.
Now, if I can get Ethel to whup me up some of her pinto beans and cornbread, I'll be right as rain.
Truly comfort reading!
Every few years for a summertime treat I start off to read the entire Heinlein library. Sometimes I don't make it to "Tunnel" being how it's closer to the end of the alphabet, but it is one of my favorites. I still look out for stobor wherever I go!
Peg
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It seems an injustice - to my way of thinking - to call those novels "juveniles". Oh, well - that's just me.
S comes before T, so maybe you get to Starship Troopers?... - I just downloaded "The Ballad of Rodger Young" by the West Point Cadets
"No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry,
No, they've got no use for praises loudly sung,
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young."
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I hadn't read Starship Troopers for some time but with it being the 4th, and your note, I dug it out again and read it yesterday. I keep all my Heinlein books packed away in a box because I'm short on bookshelf space and, well, I know I have them. I don't need to see them to be reminded.
I ran out of steam last night and finished the last 30 pages or so today.
I agree with you on the "juveniles" part. When a book makes me think and argue with myself that much, it certainly seems like it ought to rate an "adult" characterization.
This is one of the books that makes me feel like I ought to be a better, stronger, fitter, more selfless person. At the same time I fit into the soft-headed category, because I think there must be a better way. Do we really have to choose only between being the colonizers or the colonized? Can't we just all get along?
I'm taking a fitness class with an instructor who was a marine. This morning I kicked butt. Must have been the after-effects, since there's no live ammo in our class!
Peg
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