Saturday Short Stack

Our Lady of La Merche

Merche is short for Mercedes. I was nearly named Mercedes.

I love to read. Reading caused Don Quixote to lose his mind. La Merche sounds sorta like La Mancha.

2011 is the year I will read too much.

And possibly lose my mind.

I am Your Lady of La Merche.

Right. It makes no sense.

"In short, our lady became so caught up in reading that she spent her nights reading from dusk till dawn and her days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading her brains dried up, causing her to lose her mind." (Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote)

Install this theme

I tend to neglect short books because I’m also too busy reading long books. This year I decided to read a short book (<200 pages) every Saturday morning. Sometimes I’ll need to finish on Sunday morning, however. But still, same idea: imbibe and digest a short book every week. Here’s an accounting.

1. Saturday, January 2, 2011: Memories in Translation: A Life Between the Lines of Arabic Literature, Denys Johnson-Davies.

2. Saturday-Sunday, January 8-9, 2011: Homer and Langley, E.L. Doctorow.