Wildfires etc

It's inappropriate to write about books and other nonsense while the outer reaches of San Diego County are being engulfed by wildfires. So I will hold back. We had been living in San Diego for only four months when the Cedar fire occured back in 2003 and felt a bit disconnected from it all then, being relative newcomers. This time, although we are not in any imminent danger, living in central San Diego proper, it feels all the more real - maybe due to the sheer size and quantity of the fires this time around. Or maybe just because this feels more like home now. There's quite a bit of smoke & fine ash around, but other than it being abnormally hot and wicked dry, its hard to tell that the apocalypse has settled in just miles from our door. I think there's enough concrete between us and the fires to keep us safe.

That said, I cannot hold this back any more! Nora Roberts was awarded the Quill Awards Book of the Year for her romance novel, Angels Fall yesterday. As if the scorched earth around me were not enough, this surely is one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. I held back as long as I could, I'm sorry. Who are these "readers across the country " who thought that that was the best book written last year? I would totally denounce the Quills as being utter garbage right now, except for the following reasons: they awarded Brian Selznick the award for Best Childrens book. Brian is a good friend of the Warwick's Book Deparment, a part-time San Diegan, and his book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, truly rocks the house. That and the award for General Fiction went to The Road. Somewhat redeemed. But not really.

Side note: My mom told me that she was coincidentally reading The Road when all the fires started on Sunday. That's a rainbows, kittens, sunny day-type book - if all of those things are outside your real door, the book remains fiction. When you put the book down and see the same images on CNN, that's not so cool. She stopped reading.