Phases

What's happening to me? I seem to have lost my hunger for kids' books at the moment. All I want to read is adult fiction; it's only grown up novels catching my eye. Is it a reaction to spending the holidays in the company of my children? Is it a subconscious longing for the company of adults, albeit in fictional form?

Look at that list over there to the right: hardly a kids or YA title among them, and the ones that are there are mostly book group assignments. Meanwhile, I have a still higher stack beside my bed, waiting -- books like Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, Margaret Drabble's The Pure Gold Baby, and Sumner Locke Elliott's Careful He Might Hear You.

I suppose at least the last one does have a child protagonist.

Or am I just turning into a grumpy old lady reader?