"Go to hell, I'm reading."

Sorry for the profanity, blame Mrs. Goodwin for not teaching her little Archie better.

That's both one of my favorite lines from the Nero Wolfe corpus (from Fer-de-Lance) and what I'm so dying to say to the world.

I've got Robert Crais' new book, Chasing Darkness an arm's length from me. Unopened. That's a crime worthy of Elvis Cole's attention in an of itself. I've got one other novel and one nonfiction work that I've gotten far enough into that I want to finish them soon. One other nonfiction work waiting in the wings. And...

But alas, I have kids needing to be schooled (ironically, they spend more time reading than I do...all part of my custom "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" curriculum), kids needing to be played with, chores to be done, a shift to put in (depending how alert I feel, I might get an hour or so of reading in tonight), a wife to talk to, etc. All of which I love to do, don't get me wrong (well, except folding laundry...).

But, oh for one day...where I could just tell everyone and everything, "Go to hell, I'm reading."