I read a book… and even remember some of it.

I think this is largely due to the fact that I’ve had to lay off the Valium since Friday. Nothing quite kills the concentration like a not so healthy nightly dose of sedatives. i’ve been reading through a series of books that are set out of in nice neat self contained sections. So if I don’t remember what I read yesterday it doesn’t matter so much. The books in question are about etymology, superstitions, origins of everyday inventions and common English phrases.  I love these sorts of books that are full of seemingly useless trivia.  I like to know how the strange phrases we use every day came into common usage.  I think that sort of thing is interesting… I might be alone in that but- meh.

 So since Friday with my new found concentration and superior memory I’ve been readaing "Bad Girls and Wicked Women: The Most Powerful, Shocking, Amazing, Thrilling and Dangerous Women of All Time" (available from the ABC shop in Oz).  What a great read!  Some of the women depicted in this book are horrific but at the same time they are fantastic.  So many of them have overcome abject poverty and unbelievably heinous abuse in their childhoods and early years to become strong, fierce and some of them terrifying, women.  Admittedly many of them tended to wield their power to avenge themselves on those that wronged them in their early years and yes, some of them also acquired a sociopathic indifference to the suffering they inflicted on others.  But what a thrilling and at the same time appalling read… it’s like watching a literary train wreck and you can’t bring yourself to look away.  Loved it.

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