A holiday weekend doesn't usually lend itself to loads of reading time. At least, when you have a teenager who "needs" to go on a shopping trip. A daughter who must have been home sick the day they discussed the difference between "wants" and "needs" at school.

Oh, but I'm being unfair. She is going to a formal dance next Saturday, and doesn't have a suitable dress. I'm just not sure where the four pairs of jeans and new shirt came from. Correction: I know where the came from; I just don't know how she convinces me of things so easily.

My total reading time so far today may have amounted to an hour, at most. I read while my daughter was getting her nails done (for the school dance this weekend), and read a bit before dinner. I'll either read this evening/night or watch some TV. Or, as I sometimes do, both. It could be my reading time will rise appreciably. One never knows. Until one finds out. Then one knows.

I've only just started on Letters to Alice. One of the two Readers Advisory groups I belong to designated the next meeting as "Jane Austen Sequels/Prequels." I'm not a lover of fan fiction, or continuations of classic works, so I'm dipping a toe in with this book. I thought it may be more palatable to start with.

I'm a little disappointed finding the correspondence is with a fictional niece, and that Weldon's writing is the purplest of purple prose. I guess she's using this high writing style because she's the published author and teacher of literaturewriting to a niece who needs instructing. But if it were me, if I'd ever been anything other than a book lover, I'd find her tone pretty annoying and possibly throw her letters into the fireplace.

But I'll persevere a little longer and see where it goes. I also have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which, strangely enough, appeals to me a little more than the sequels.

I can't explain it, either.

Also well along in Ed Dobson's The Year of Living Like Jesus. Having read A.J. Jacobs's hilarious The Year of Living Biblically I could not resist reading Dobson's own attempt. Dobson's living with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), battling very serious health issues while he's making an attempt to live a life as near Christ's as possible. Inspirational, in more ways than one.

And no, I don't plan to follow in their sandals. Not just because of the gender difference, either. Being unable to grow a beard is one thing, but living a righteous lifestyle? No. Way. But righteous or not, it says a lot about morality, and things spiritual, reading books like this one. We may not agree on the finer points, but we definitely have common ground.

So much reading over the course of the week, yet this weekend it's been hard squeezing any in. I couldn't list all I read last week. I dip into so many books it would take as long to record my reading as it does to do the actual reading. Alas.

But for today, reading has been light, but the quality's generally good. You can't have everything. Though I wouldn't turn it down.