Sunday, October 19th

Sunday, October 19th 

The Reading Room

Page 134-end of Goblin Secrets

Oh, The Reading Room. You are one of my favorite new places in Omaha. Why oh why do you have to be located downtown in the middle of some ferocious road construction and no parking nearby and near an apartment complex where my friend and I actually watched a naked woman do yoga in front of her bay windows once when we were eating at the restaurant across the street? If you were located anywhere else, I’d be at you much more frequently.

Lament finished.

As the name indicates, this is a big room made for reading! It also serves drinks and appetizers. Yes, pretty much my dream come true. It’s in an old building that’s been beautifully renovated to look like an old-fashioned library with high ceilings, books lining the walls, hardwood floors, and plenty of comfy seating and little nooks and crannies where you can enjoy your book. 

Today I walk in and the manager–who happens to be pregnant–immediately greets me and asks if I’m with the book club. I am not. So this poor woman offers to move a quite large chair over to a corner where I won’t be disturbed. I do my best to help her and not feel guilty even though I didn’t ask the soon-to-be-mom to move furniture for me. I’m pretty glad she does, though, since the book club shows up shortly after and they aren’t quiet. There are also four members wearing COVID-era masks, one of whom also has her head wrapped up in some scarf looking thing. Is this a book club for germaphobes? Those in the witness protection program? Eh, whatever, at least they are getting out and socializing!

I order a glass of prosecco (five o’clock somewhere right? Har har) and settle back into Rownie’s adventures with the goblins. It’s just so well-written and fun while still being dark and atmospheric. If that makes sense. There’s also some very wise lines like “Our selves are rough and unrehearsed tales we tell the world’. Aren’t they ever! I wonder what tales the book club chick with the mask and scarf around her head could tell. Maybe I don’t want to know.

In a little under an hour, I finish the book and my prosecco. Yes, I made the drink last almost an hour which has to be a record for me. I love the book all the way through, though it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger to entice readers to pick up the next one which I may do at some point but probably not anytime soon.

There’s just something so indulgent about reading an entire book in a day. It’s like thumbing your nose at real life and saying, “Screw it! I’m out for the day and will be living a completely different and probably far more interesting life!” I remember reading a book once–the title had Tolstoy and a big purple chair in it, I believe–that was all about this woman’s recovery from her sister’s death (or maybe her mother’s?). Her recovery plan: read a book a day for a year. Which…first of all, how is that even possible? Yes, I read a book in a day but it was a middle grade book with less than 200 pages. I remember this woman was reading books by authors like Don Delillo and Joyce Carol Oates and, of course, Tolstoy. Now I’m not sure if you’ve read anything by these authors or not, but let’s just say they are damn sure not middle grade books under 200 pages. 

Second of all, if it is possible, you’d pretty much have to be doing nothing but reading all your waking hours and while I love reading…I also kind of enjoy life. Anyway. Every once in a while I get to indulge in reading a book in a weekend or even in a single day and it’s lovely but certainly not going to occur on a regular basis. 

I bid The Reading Room and the Witness Protection Program Book Club adieu and head for home to make dinner. I had planned on starting Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen next, but for some crazy reason I’m missing my witch and vampire and decide to stick with them at least through the second book. I already own it, after all, and it seems a shame to let it go to waste.