Reading books this summer...

has been fewer than usual. I spent a week in Washington DC on a mission trip with 27 teenagers and five other adults. It was a great trip - we toured around the city visiting soup kitchens, shelters, food banks, and spent a day cooking at DC Central Kitchen http://www.dccentralkitchen.org/ who cook over 4000 meals a day and ship them out to various community organizations, shelters, etc....It was an amazing experience, and I highly recommend people to visit the kitchen and volunteer sometime. It was just too much fun.

We also went to the movies, had time to explore the Mall, went out to eat 3 nights, and saw a delightful play at the Kennedy Center called "Shear Madness", part play, part improv.

During that time, I was reading "The Language of Bees" by Laurie R. King. It's not on the Lost book list, but was a fun mystery novel nonetheless, if you enjoy the Sherlock Holmes genre.

I'm back to the book list though. I purchased a copy of The Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien as it wasn't in the library. I'll talk more about it at some point, but when I went to Lostpedia to read more about the book and it's tie in to Lost, the reading was extensive. I've decided to read the Lostpedia article after I read the book, because I don't want to spoil the book. However, I've read about a third of the book so far, and the main character and his soul named "Joe" are hanging out at a dreamlike police station...on a strange journey to find the cash box of the man he murdered. It's really sorta stream of consciousness in a way. Reminds me a lot of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, as the character seems to be traveling through an alternative state of consciousness having long bizarre conversations with strange individuals he meets along the way.

I just checked out the collection of stories by Flannery O'Connor Everything That Rises Must Converge, which was seen in the season finale being read by the mysterious Jacob as John Locke was falling out of an 8th floor window. I don't know yet how this book must relate to Lost, but I feel it must be important since Jacob was reading it. Again, I'll have more to say as I read the short stories.

On hold at the library is Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie, which Sawyer was reading at one point on the beach. I'm still plugging away at the list, slowly but surely...

That's the news for now...until next time!
R. Orr