May 25, Sunday morning -- Reading Hermann Hesse

One block from the Mission District's annual Carnaval

Waiting for a friend and reading Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. It was given to her about three weeks ago (by a different friend), but she had been afraid to read it. She was worried it wouldn't meet the expectations she had of the author. The first book she read by Hesse was The Glass Bead Game. Then she read Demian, her favorite book of all time.

Recently she read The Scar, by China Miéville and she'd been reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which she realized she needed a break from. Hence the Hesse.

If she were to write her own book, it'd be an illustrated picture book about plants, for children. People don't appreciate plants enough, she said. The book would talk about all the wonderful things that plants do, as well as things that are interesting, like how they communicate with each other through hormones, chemicals, pheromones.

When she was a child she, like every girl in her generation, loved the Baby-sitters Club books by Ann Martin AND, the favorite--she was always a plant nerd--Miss Rumphius, a picture book which follows the life of a little girl named Alice from childhood to adulthood. From childhood to old age she has many marvelous adventures, but is never completely fulfilled. She thinks back on the advice her grandfather gave her, that, in order to live a good life, you must make the world more beautiful, so she starts planting lupine seeds everywhere she goes.

While we were talking her friend showed up and told us about a plant book she would recommend, which she actually had in her bag--Seeds of Change. ....I wish I'd asked her to take it out because now I'm searching for it on line to find the author I'm confused. There are several books with the same or similar title.

How do you pace yourself when reading an author whose books you've just discovered you love?