Can I keep him?

I am loving the book I'm reading right now. I've been extremely busy, meaning consequently late nights are becoming my norm; since pre-pillow time is reading time, my fatigue has only allowed two to three pages at a time to be ingested before the eyelids quit resisting gravity for the day. This is unfortunate because a)I love to read and haven't done tons and tons of it lately, and b)it just so happens that one of my largest pet peeves in life is being unable to read at least 30 pages of a book in one sitting.

Point being.

This book I'm reading

(which, by the way, is called John Chancellor Makes Me Cry by Anne Rivers Siddons)

is so wonderful that it is not only a treat to read even a few pages each night if that is all I am allowed, but I also kind of like that the book is taking some time to get through. It's being savored, and I'm sipping* it, like tea. Siddons is from Atlanta, and the book was published in 1975. It's a compilation of essays following her through a year of life, offering a beautiful blend of snarky, feminine humor, inner calm, tastes of married life, the stress and value of a working life. I also love her timeless archaism (yes, oxymoron), and many of the book's main characters are rescued stray pets. Cats, mostly, which obviously gains Anne points.

I found John Chancellor (the book, not the journalist) while wandering from the history section to the travel section to the...I don't know, essay section? I went to the self check-out and was rejected! in my scanning of John. Rude. So I visited my human librarian at the front desk who said, "Hmm," and informed me that it was not even in the system!

I found an orphan book! She put John in the database so he could make some friends in cyberspace, and then let me take him home for three weeks. I'm loving him so much that I feel I want to keep him. The library didn't even know what they had! If it weren't for me, he wouldn't be in the system. I mean, People. So I don't know about you, but I feel like I have automatic adoption rights here. Anne gets to keep her cats, why can't I keep John?

*I cannot take credit for this term "sip" concerning a book; while she may not even remember saying it, I first heard this phrase from my friend Carly. Hey girl.