A funny thing. Life has been so busy lately (facebook, free cell, you know – important stuff) I’ve not been reading as much as usual. 

But then Rachel arrived in town and I orchestrated my trips to Delhi to coincide with whatever free time she had. Though she was also reading less than usual, for her that meant only one book a week instead of three. She gave me a few recommendations and it was off to the races.

Through her, I discovered Richard Russo and I went out and bought the first one I could find in a Delhi bookstore – That Old Cape Magic. I loved it!

When I finished that, I found I needed another immediately but none of the stores I visited had anything else by Russo. So I branched out and bought one by Colm Toibin – a novel called Brooklyn.

Also wonderful!

I gulped them both down like a thirsty wanderer at an oasis in the desert and I realized how I had been depriving myself (Freecell??? Facebook???).

But it was only later in the week that I really understood what I had been missing. My mind was humming again. One evening, I was going through the usual after-dinner chores and thinking about the day’s events. Those events included something Griffin had said and how it had upset Joy; They included Eilys’s mother and how she was coping alone in her house in Ireland. I felt as if I had just had dinner with old friends, people I had known for years, and my head was all full of them and their stories and their worries and the new dresses they were thinking of buying. and the cost of a third-class berth on a steam ship home.

I had returned to the world of books.