stuck in the middle with you

it seems like every time i go to my parents' house i come back to chicago with more than i brought. my bag on the way back home is stuffed with food, clean laundry, and more often than not, books. after a brief trip home over the weekend, i brought back a stack (but i also left one there for dad, so really it was fairly balanced out), and i was so excited about them that i kind of started all of them. and then i went to the library last night and picked up several more books, which i also started. sigh. i always do this.

the one i left in madison was the strawberry statement. it was written in the late 60s by a college "revolutionary" - i put it in quotes because really, he was just on the sidelines and he was mostly in it for the girls. it's an interesting book, but i think i was looking for some answers about the sixties and anti-war protests, but i came away disillusioned - sort of like kunen.

on the bus back to o'hare i started extremes along the silk road. this one caught my eye because chicago is in the middle of a year-long celebration of the silk road, with art exhibits, concerts, etc. i haven't finished the book, though, because something is missing. i have a good sense of what middleton is feeling on the trip, but i don't have any sense of the landscape or even the people he encounters. mainly he talks about how worried he is that he won't make it.
so now i'm re-reading the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamline baby, and i also have some flannery o'connor and john steinbeck waiting at my apartment. and i'm sure i'll be back at the library later this week, searching for something else.