I pretty much read all weekend. The weather wasn't worth going out in and that was all the excuse I needed.

There's actually a poetry competition in The Ionian Mission and later neither Stephen nor Graham are particularly enthused over the prospects of critiquing the poetical compositions of Naval gentlemen intended for actual publication. Good reading for a Friday night.

Caught up on my Don Quixote reading on Saturday and I'm continuing to find it quite enjoyable, to the point that I could easily read on and not limit myself to three chapters a week. I'm toying with reading on to the end of Book One next weekend and then taking a break for a couple months before continuing on with the others. The crew at 400 Windmills have begun their discussion of DQ and it's been both insightful and informative.

Decided I ought to spend some more time with Alexander Hamilton before beginning another novel; I'm now past the midway mark thanks to the time I spent on the bio on Sunday.

Also read the Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum and Nell Freudenberger stories from the BASS 2004 collection; I loved how both stories relied heavily on other texts--Tobias Wolff and Ray Bradbury--for much of their resonance.

Don't know if I'll make the time to do more than skip through Diane Ravitch's The Language Police, but I did spend some time with her classical literature sampler for high schoolers at the back of the book.

Also read some stuff online about the Fisher King and found a few books of commentary at the library on "The Waste Land." I need to look for a copy of Tennyson's "The Holy Grail," and according to Harold Bloom, I ought to read Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" as well.

Won two rounds of Mystery Quotes at Readerville--guessed Ian McEwan the first time, recognized a Guy Vanderhaeghe section from The Last Crossing the second.