Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I zipped down to the library, which is to say that I walked twenty minutes in each direction in the rain, in the blistering sun, uphill both ways in my underwear because I figure I can use the exercise and I'm too cheap to pay for bus fare since my Upass ran out three days ago.

Besides, I'd have to walk twenty-five minutes to get to the nearest ATM machine that won't charge me any money for using it in order to get a twenty that I would have to walk somewhere else to break. It's better just to walk to the library.

It's funny, at the library there were two people I knew from high school in the stacks, and I did my absolute best to avoid them even though that's kind of a stupid thing to do. I mean, we went to school together, and were on good terms with each other and they're even my facebook friends. Oh well. That's the thing with libraries. They make me kind of paranoid and I'd rather just be left alone with the books.

I ended up with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer, which seems to me, was recommended by Jonathon (but not the same Jonathon) a while ago. At the rate I'm reading, I will have it done by Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure because I get less reading done over the weekend.

That being said Foer has the wonderful ability of being able to deal with really solemn and heavy subjects with a lot of humour, while at the same time, not affording them any disrespect either. It's a tough thing to do. In this case, Oskar Schell, 9, has a key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Centre, and he is trying to find the lock it fits into. All the while, he is refusing to wear anything other than white, writing letters to Stephen Hawking, inventing things like birdseed jackets and detatchable pockets and inviting himself into the homes of strangers.

I'm doing a poor job of describing this. Just go read the book. It's good so far. Oh, and it has pictures.