Home again, home again

We got the all-clear on Tuesday night, so very happily drove home at 11pm. Dave was following me as we drove through Carmel Valley, and he said my tyres threw up clouds of ash all over the road, illuminated in his headlights.
We are very, very happy to be back at the house, with nothing more to worry us than a fine coating of ash over everything. We are so very lucky to have been on the edge of things.
I couldn't bear to have our bags still packed and the paintings wrapped in sheets and stacked against the wall, so - hoping I wasn't tempting providence - I've unpacked it all and restored home-iness, and that feels better. I've kept the TV on, to keep up with it all.
Fortunately the Santa Ana winds that were expected to howl in from the east for two more terrifying days have weakened, so everybody gets a bit of a breather and the fire crews a window of opportunity.

:: In keeping with getting back to normal, how about a bit of

Booking through Thursday

This week's question:

I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

Well, the title that immediately springs to mind (and I might have dissed this one already to some of you), is Perfume, by Patrick Susskind, which I attempted maybe five or more years ago.
I stuck it out until about three quarters of the way through, so I gave it plenty of opportunity to redeem itself. But eventually I decided it was so loathsome, so cumulatively dire, that I actually flung it across my bedroom into the wall.

But people rave about this book. And there's a movie coming out. Should I try again? Hmm.

My theory is that there are bad books, to be sure; but more often than not, there are pretty good books that you read at the wrong time, or for the wrong reasons (like school). Hence the giving up on Ulysses, Kerouac, and other worthy stuff.
And I haven't been a re-reader, though my friends chide me on this for the very reason I elaborate on above.