Writing instead of reading

I've been busy doing National Novel Writing Month since November 1, so my pleasure reading had declined significantly.
My two book groups met back to back this week, Sunday and Monday, so I did take a break from writing to do some extensive reading. I always forget just how theraputic it can be to completely escape into a good book for several hours.

I read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, which was beautifully narrated and much less racy and more literary that I was anticipated, although I loved it all the more for making me think. The most erotic bits were about the geisha makeup, and how a Y or W design of bare skin was left on the back of the neck at the hairline, while the rest of the face and neck were painted white. 434 pages. I checked it out.

For Literature with Lunch, I read A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I think my colleague wanted to kick me out of bookgroup when I ever so eleoquently compared Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley hooking up in the encampment during the break before the war started with my own experiences with hooking up with people at church camp, but it's all about the idea that the 'game of love' and flirting is signifigantly different from the real thing. I liked this much better now than when I read it at 14, and I think I understood the romance much better also.
314 pages. I read a musty brittle paperback copy from a used bookstore.