I wish I were leisure reading.

(and maybe looking as cool as Grace Kelly, but that's a reading fantasy for another day :-p).

15K+ words on POISON GARDEN: An Elle Black Penny Dread (thanks to the amazing versatility of Scrivener), and 1 more illustration to complete for the SUNDARK paper book.

I have been reading, all for research. Victorian cookbooks and garden books are fascinating and all, but for the sake of expediency I'm only looking up what I need (all vegetable dishes, for one; large estate gardens with conservatories, for another). It's a bit of a dilemma listing my 'am reading' list when there really is no realistic goal to finish such books. Kind of like listing how to fix plumbing manuals, where one reads only the section on replacing a garbage disposal.

Therefore, my 'am reading' list is just going to grow, and though I hate being a dilettante with the subjects of my books---because as an obsessive-compulsive, I prefer being thorough and knowing *everything*---I do know that if I read all 400pp of Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage in order to write a brief subplot to Dark Victorian: EVERLIFE, I'm not going to get any writing done.

The version of The Silent World, by Jacques Cousteau, that Grace Kelly is reading is a first print hardcover (of course), and can still be found around. I just listed the 2004 version, though the collector in me would like a 1st edition copy. ;)

Love this photo of Grace Kelly and finally found the title she's reading in this pic. The Silent World : A story of undersea discovery and adventure, by the first men to swim at record depths with the freedom of fish, by J. Y. Cousteau, 1953, the hardcover edition, though the one pictured at Amazon is one cover variation.