In which I realize I'm not as literate as I think I am

One of the main reasons I began writing this is so that I wouldn't end up forgetting all the books I read. Only to find I don't actually read that many any more! Mostly lately I've been reading issues of film magazines and The Believer, which I feel is making me feel like I'm reading books while actually accumulating nothing but interesting quotations. However I did just finish Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. Very good British novel of mediums and their bloody useless spirit guides. The conceit of the book is that the mediums actually do have contact with the spirit world, but they can't effect much control about what messages, if any, come through, so they resort to the same sort of blind reading tricks that debunkers are constantly pointing out. The spirit world generally is more concerned with why you can't find good chips anyplace these days, than with helping out, or with attempting to feel up one of the psychics or actually crawl inside a womb in an attempt to be reborn. It's a visceral, often very funny book, and a fairly savage picture of how people believe what they want to believe.
Also recently listened to the new album from Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, Ballad of the Broken Seas. My only observation is that Izzy's ethereal warbling in the background of the first track, "Deus Ibi Est", sounds pretty much like the Whoville carol from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I love it when these humorless types do something really funny.
Currently listening to Sun Ra and Kristy MacColl to make it through the days. Maybe I will throw in some Billie Holiday later.