not my doom

i have determined one more way i don't want to die. the bubonic plague. thanks, really, but no thanks. there are a few ways i can think of in which i wouldn't necessarily mind taking my leave of this life, but the old black death sure ain't one of them.

this morning i finished reading connie willis's doomsday book and it was excellent. a bit of time travel, a bit of medieval history, a bit of snow and rain, a bit of the academic life, a bit of influenza, and a bit of plague. jolly good fun, and set at christmastime to boot. her descriptions of the agonies of plague victims in the last chapters are almost too vivid, and the book was difficult to put down. i like her stuff a lot, especially this one and passage, which i read a few years back.

anyway. as of this morning i'm onto another doubtlessly cheery book, don delillo's contribution to the 9/11 subgenre, falling man.