It is with regret that I imagine you, whomever you are, scrolling down the page in hope that something new has been put down here. The regret is partly for myself — because within the half-hour I will have abandoned my appointed pursuits and will be ensconced in my bed chamber, holding a weighty volume called The Historian, penned by a scholar of the name Elizabeth Kostova. My tale begins yesterday, when I tried in vain to get two area bookstores to sell me the book a day early. Alas! What callous disregard I was met with (“Sorry, hon, not till tomorrow.” Sorry indeed!). Not to be denied I entered the bookstore this morning at dawn — or rather, 9 o’clock— and laid claim to a copy, snarling at my rivals like a Romanian cur of the steppes. Now am on Chapter 4 and can truthfully say — to use a phrase carved in stone on the side of a crypt of evil repute in the mountainous Yachmanian province — that it is totally rocking. If you are not yet in possession of this volume, I feel sorrow for you. If you have need of links to entertain you, I beseech you to investigate the blogroll at the right. I can fight no more.