June Is Bustin' Out All Over

We're into June, which means...gloom, around here. June Gloom, or the marine layer, causes gray, cool mornings all over the L.A. area for some or all of the month of June. Or, as this year, most of May, too--much to the dismay of the tourists. I don't find it gloomy, however, and the longer it lasts, the better I like it. I'm not eager for our unrelenting summer to begin, since it won't be over until some time around November.

June seems to have brought out all the purple flowers, too. Here's a shot of a hydrangea in my yard, and a jacaranda tree in my neighborhood. Every once in awhile I'll drive down a street lined with jacarandas and the purple craziness takes my breath away.

My mooched copy of Fair and Tender Ladies (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Lee Smith arrived just in time for me to start the Southern Reading Challenge, hosted by Maggie at Maggie Reads, which began on June 1st. See my sidebar for my list of Southern books.

I'm almost finished with Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell. I was happy to see that Matt at A Variety of Words finished it recently. I'm eager to finish this strange and wonderful book so I can discuss it with Matt, and others.

I've never sought out dystopian fiction, but it's been finding me lately. I've noticed that while reading Cloud Atlas, and other books with a dystopian view, I tune into world events with a different ear. I'm more prone to spin out worst case scenarios, certainly, but I also take news about far-flung conflicts, strange diseases, natural disasters and global warming more seriously, more personally. It tends to make me feel all global problems (like politics) are actually local. Which I think has got to be a good thing.

And speaking of local, I am trying to eat more food that is grown locally. I haven't even started my next Non-Fiction Five challenge book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, but I can guess how I'm going to feel afterward. Everyone seems to be reading this book at the moment. Robin at A Fondness For Reading just wrote about it, and you can read her eloquent post here.