The Back and the Books

The last few days have found me focusing on my lower back. I initially injured it a couple weeks ago while working on the bricks, but the seriousness of the injury didn't become apparent until some time last week, when an unrelated viral infection struck. After visiting the doctor on Monday, it has been all about ibuprofen, heat and rest. The doctor described recovery time in terms of weeks, not hours or days as I had hoped. He said, "You're going to have to slow down, ease up and do nothing." Probably noticing the perplexed look on my face, he elaborated a little bit about what that entailed exactly and it seems to cover everything except breathing, blinking, eating and going to work. On the bright side, the viral infection seems to be on its way out.

I figure I'll use this "downtime" to build some new good habits, lose some old bad ones, but most importantly, catch up on a stack of books and magazines I've been meaning to read.

Last week, I finally finished and started Terry Pratchett's hilarious Going Postal, his latest Discworld novel. I put "finished" ahead of "started" because that always seems to be the harder (and more impressive) of the two minor accomplishments. I bought the book last year at London's Heathrow Airport on my way to Austria and had been saving it for the right time to read.

A quick aside: It's difficult to say when it's the "right time" to read a particular book. It isn't something you plan. It just sort of happens and only when you least expect it. It's different for everybody, but for me, it's usually when I'm perusing the bookshelf and my eyes happen upon a book that begins to glow so brightly that all the other books seem to disappear and there's a swell of violin music and visions of reading it on a sunny day somewhere in a meadow far away. Or something like that. When it's the right time, you just know.

Anyway, I still maintain that the British covers of his books are superior to the American versions. Going Postal centers around the revival of Ankh-Morpork's postal service, which may seem like a bland topic, but Pratchett gives it his typical clever and comic spin. Besides being a book about mail, it's one about hope, redemption, trust, corporate greed and golems. Throw in characters with names like Havelock Vetinari, Moist von Lipwig, Mr. Pump and Adora Belle Dearheart and you have a novel I can actually complete.

I still have a short stack of other Pratchett novels on my shelf to read (or re-read in one case), including Jingo and Good Omens (written with Neil Gaiman). As long as tickling the funny bone isn't prohibited during recuperation, then I might start with those books.

By the way, for any other Discworld fans out there, Thud!, his thirtieth novel in the series, is scheduled for release in October. Now, if I could find a way to get my hands on a British copy. That would be sweet.