I have been getting back into reading mysteries, now that I’ve found some authors who aren’t writing to a script. I’m loving Patricia Highsmith. Right now I’m reading Original Sin by P.D. James. Anyhow– Monday night, I happened to see this BBC movie called “No Night Is Too Long” on Showcase. Total fluke, I was just looking for some background noise, but it was so gripping [even with the distracting obviously-filmed-in-Victoria scenery ;-)], I ended up sitting down and watching the whole thing. Well, I was just so intrigued–and actually hoping to find that they planned to re-air it–that I did some digging and I found out that “No Night Is Too Long” is a book by Barbara Vine (a pseudonym of Ruth Rendell), who apparently is a big mystery/thriller writer. So I’ll have to look for it next time I’m at Chapters.

Speaking of books, I have on my desk a copy of Ilsa by Madeleine L’Engle. Ilsa! I’m all =-O A little background: Ilsa was her second book and it’s never been reprinted, so the only copies out there are the originals from 1946. Sometimes a copy will come up on eBay for $300, but otherwise it’s unavailable. I’ve been looking for it for oh, 20 years, in every library or used bookstore I’ve ever been in. Always nothing. Until a couple months ago. I was at the UBC library catalog, looking for something else, and I thought, hey– and typed in Ilsa. When the title came up, I thought, no, it’ll be something else. But then I clicked and it really was the right book. And it wasn’t even missing! Unfortunately, it was out. And it continued to be out all fall. I know, I could’ve put a hold on it. But I really wanted to be able to walk up to the stacks and take it off the shelf myself (is that crazy?). Anyhow– I finally got my hands on it today. It’s been rebound, but otherwise it’s in good condition, which somehow seems amazing. My speculation is that she hates this book for some reason and has nixed it being reprinted. But I find her earlier books to be riskier and more raw (honest?) than her later ones, so I’m terribly curious about this book, and I can’t wait to read it.

However… our open memo is due on Monday, and I’m a bundle of stress. I have LSLAP tomorrow, and I’ll have to leave Legal Writing early to get there, and I’ll probably end up late anyhow. I also started volunteering for CJFL, doing editing stuff (footnote checking, atm), so I’ve been doing that this week… instead of working on my memo. Well, I did work on the thing all weekend. I did a bit on it tonight, and I have the three hour stretch tomorrow. But damn, I think there’s a class in the computer room–at least there was last week. arghh. That sucks. Okay, guess I better come up with a plan B, in case.