I want to spend the morning sitting on the sofa with a book, nursing a big mug of very black, very strong coffee. It’s the perfect day for it, cold and rainy and windy. Going out to do almost anything today would be no fun at all. I can stay in, I can stretch out on the sofa, I can read that book, but unfortunately the coffee is out of the question. I drank so much coffee this week that my stomach will not put up with me doing that for even one day more, so it’s tea for me today, and most likely tomorrow still. Maybe even Monday, just to be safe.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading this past week and a half, partly because I’ve been down sick with a head cold. Nothing serious, just a cough, then congestion, and feeling achy and tired overall. I’m finally over it now, just in time to experience the weather going from sunny and warm to rainy and blowy. I’ve gotten so stir crazy that I bundled up in what I thought was a rain-proof overcoat to take a long walk around the neighborhood yesterday. Turned out the overcoat was not even a little bit rain-repellent. It soaked up the rain like a sponge, but thanks to the layers I wore under it, I myself stayed mostly dry.

So I’m inside, and reading, and drinking lots of tea.

I’m currently reading a chapter of “The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise,” by Edward P. Stafford. It’s a 500-page door stop of a book that was written (intentionally? hard to tell) in the style of a comic book like “Sgt. Rock.” No shade to Stafford; I enjoy that kind of writing. I was looking for an academic explanation of the design, construction, and deployment of the most famous of the three Yorktown-class carriers, and happened across this through sheer luck. I’ve been reading chapters from it between reading other books, to take a break and reset my head. I would recommend it if you like black-and-white 1940s war movies starring Van Johnson and Dana Andrews.

I just finished reading “James: A Novel” by Percival Everett, a retelling of the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but from the point of view of the slave, Jim. It was so good I could hardly put it down. I picked up a copy while I was visiting the library last Tuesday. I remember seeing good reviews of it and picked it up on impulse. I finished it the next day. It’s less than 300 pages and it’s almost all dialogue so it’s a quick read, but there’s a lot to think about. I’m looking forward to reading it again in the near future to catch more of the details.

I read “James” while I was in the middle of reading “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom,” by Marcus Rediker. I saw the movie about the Amistad rebellion years ago. It’s very good, but it’s a drama and I wanted to know more but didn’t get around to it until last week. Procrastination is a disease. Anyway, I was surprised to learn that the Amistad rebels were feted as heroes by quite a large number of the American public for taking their freedom back from their enslavers. Crowds turned out to visit with them while they were held in jail, and later to see them tell their story on stage. They raised a substantial amount of money from their public appearances to help pay for their legal defense — even though they were captured and transported illegally, their enslavers wanted their property back, and the U.S. President wanted them returned to avoid an international incident — and for their voyage back to the African coast. An amazing story.

And that’s what I’ve been reading this past week.