Novel Experience

So far as I can recall, I've read eight novels in the last 18 months or so, seven of them in the last 18 days. They include three SF novels and three John Le Carre Smiley novels, the first three, and I have become an addict. This little binge seems to have been prompted by getting the flu, despite a flu shot, and subsequently contracting pneumonia. The flu didn't seem to make me very sick, but the pneumonia sapped every bit of my physical and especially intellectual strength. I sort of felt like I had gotten too stupid to read anything heavier than a short, light novel.

One of the best things about the Le Carre novels is the author's short introductions, which tell a little about his remembered state of mind when he wrote them.

I'd like to read more, but I had best get back to my edX computer science class, in which I had accumulated enough points for a minimal C before I got sick, but haven't done anything since.

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