I am now in Week 4 of the Couch to 5K plan and I might very well stay here for an extra week. Last week we upgraded to a 5 minute span of running and now there are two of those but yesterday I died at the 3 minute mark at the end. (This is 3 min run, walk 90 secs, 5 min run, 2 and a half minute walk, 3 min run, 90 sec walk and 5 min run at the end.) The final 5 minutes was beyond me but sitting there I thought wow - last time I ran this much was the 9th grade, I think. Amazing. I will say that I'm not enjoying this but I am enjoying doing it - if that makes any sense. I don't see myself as someone getting a runner's high. I do get that from lifting weights - the act of doing the exercise is as enjoyable as the effects of the exercise in that case. But running - when it comes to running I just want to do it and know I've done it. Today, I try that second five minutes again.

The Guardian reviewed Murakami's running book last weekend and I think finally tapped into why this book (and others like it) would especially appeal to writers. Here's part of it:

The style is very clipped, many of the sentences short, so you feel the pace of the runner skipping through the text. There are seeming inconsistencies in there, though, about the relationship between running and writing. On the one hand he says: "Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day." Yet he also writes: "Occasionally, hardly ever really, I get an idea to use in a novel. But really as I run, I don't think much of anything worth remembering." Presumably it is the focus and endurance he learned through running. Yet it is hard to imagine that his running does not unlock creativity too. I speak as someone for whom a disappointing run is one where I do not have an idea good enough to text to myself while running so that I can follow it up when home, and whose solution to any kind of mental block is to go for a run or a bike ride, BlackBerry in pocket ready to record whatever emerges when the block is gone. Then again, elsewhere Murakami says: "While I was running, some other thoughts on writing novels came to me.

I write a lot when I'm exercising - or rather I think about writing a lot. The only thoughts I have are counting (how many reps/how many minutes) so there is plenty of room for more creative thoughts to leak in. This might be the only reason that I like running; it makes writing easier.

In other news, I forgot last week to mention the new issue of Eclectica Magazine which has the usual awesome mix of fiction, essays, poems and more. I have some major picture book reviews this go-round - fiction and non. I also did some middle grade reviewing that I'm rather proud of. I think I caught quite a few books for the little ones that have been missed otherwise.

It's the adult titles I really want to mention though - two cool mysteries that I reviewed together. One of them, Streets of Babylon by Carina Burman, is truly grand. Here's a bit of my review:

...with The Streets of Babylon Carina Burman has written a mystery about a Swedish novelist who must find her missing companion in 1851 London. Euthanasia Bondeson is an independent woman of a certain age (near forty) who has traveled to London to meet with her publishers and continue a pleasant research trip on a new novel. She and her companion Agnes make some society friends at the Great Exhibition and Euthanasia seems to develop some romantic feelings for one of them, but an afternoon tour of the British Museum ends in catastrophe when Agnes goes missing. As the hours go by and it becomes clear that she has not simply gotten lost, Euthanasia finds herself forced to consider that the very beautiful Agnes has been kidnapped. She files a report and, along with Welsh police inspector Owain Evans, begins an investigation into the seamier side of London. The search for Agnes takes her from the homes of the very wealthy to a "molly" house populated by transvestites. She meets a man of God, some prostitutes and a middle class matron who hides a family secret. Nothing is as it seems as Euthanasia and Owain steadfastly follow Agnes' trail. Our protagonist never falters in her determination to discover what happened, however, and capture the perpetrator of this dastardly crime.

She is so totally Amelia Peabody as a Swedish novelist that I really could hardly contain my joy.

I loved that mystery and highly recommend it for Peabody fans.

In other news I have big family visits in the coming days so posting will likely be sparse. I do want to write about the wonderful book I'm reading right now though - Steinbeck's Ghost by Lewis Buzbee. I am certain that this is a book that anyone who loves books and libraries and ghost stories and haunted places will love. It's for 10-14 year olds but, I swear, it is proving to be one of my favorite reads this year. It has made me want to read Steinbeck something that I thought a few excerpts from Of Mice and Men in high school had ruined forever. (Oh - and a bit of The Red Pony was rather upsetting as well.) But now - now I'm wanting to read all sorts of Steinbeck.

I'll be writing lots on this book in the next few days - promise.