The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

I ended up skipping out of work today, probably because I didn't end up getting to sleep until after midnight. "One more chapter" quickly became two hundred pages. Why do I try to read before going to bed again? I almost always end up skipping the "going to bed" part unless I actually finish the book in question.

And I had a really strange dream.

( As I can remember it )

There was more to it than that, there always is, and I can't capture the feel of the dream at all. It was...odd.

Actual fortune, from a fortune cookie left over from yesterday's lunch:

You could prosper in the field of medical research

Odd, given the content of last night's dream.

I just finished Kushiel's Avatar, the third and final book in a trilogy about a masochistic courtesan. It doesn't sound like something that would ordinarily appeal to me, but...wow.

The first book was magnificent, lush and vivid and beautiful, rife with politics and intrigue and mystery. The second was also good, though it didn't feel quite as strong as the first. The third...

Powerful is the only word that comes to mind. The plot twists and turns in unexpected directions, taking you with it into the darkest depths of the human soul, sparing nothing. It is a conclusion that could not have happened without the strength of the first two books, without the development and characters introduced therein. Without all that came before, it is nothing, but with it, the book is simply amazing, magnificent, as perfect as a jewel and just as cold and hard and relentless.