Seen Reading will be taking a wee vacation. Posts will resume June 4, 2007.

Be seein’ ya!

East Indian woman, early 20s, wearing a red tank top and jean capris, gold bracelets chiming on both wrists.

Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Sophie Kinsella (Dell)

Page 56:

I have no clothes. This cannot be happening.

When the doors open she’s promised herself that she will put down the book and look people in the eyes. One. Two. Three. Four. When she reaches 356, a number of no significance, she will allow herself to be open to surprise. She’s tired of check marks, lists of pros and cons, what her horoscope defines as the best course of action. Today she will simply gaze upon another, upon you, and fall.

Caucasian male, late 40s-early 50s, wearing beige pants, loose around the waist, a crumpled plaid dress shirt and blue cotton jacket. The sign reads “Out of Home and Work”. He sits cross-legged, his pet rat running around his lap and shoulders.

Grift Sense, James Swain (Ballantine)

Page 101:

During his twenty years working the casinos in Atlantic City, he had kept a profile of every hustler he’d ever come into contact with, jotting down their patterns, habits, vices, and idiosyncrasies. A hustler might change his appearance, he reasoned, but he could never change who he was.

The rat runs over his fingers, in between, rolling, easy, like poker chips, the sensation of felt grazing his wrist.

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with blonde bob, wearing maroon cords and black windbreaker, carrying a MEC shoulder bag, cell phone clipped to the strap. She leans forward in her seat to accommodate the overstuffed back pack she keeps on for two stops until she hops off into the street.

The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson (William Morrow & Company)

Page 33:

“As you can see, there are four categories of daily activities that we all face.”

The things we want to do and have to do;
The things we have to do but don’t want to do;
The things we want to do but don’t have to do;
The things we don’t want to do and don’t have to do.

A plastic step stool, scuffed and greying. Fuzzy covers masking the stir ups. A Christmas card thumbtacked to the cork board. It’s almost June. Tears mark the cushion’s edge of a lopsided swivel chair. Rust rims the base of the examination table. Paint chips away from the wall. A plant fossilizes on the desk. She shifts her weight, her tail bone aching, feeling as broken as the rest of this lot.

Black woman, early 30s, wearing beige pants, dark blue top and blue-and-white polka dot headband pushing the loose curls from her forehead.

Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela (Back Bay Books)

Page 203:

We were taken in sealed police vans escorted by a half-dozen troop carriers filled with armed soldiers. One would have thought a full-scale civil war was under way from the precautions the state was taking with us.

A man enters the train, takes the seat across from her and mutters at the floor. His brow is furrowed; deep creases. His eyes are wide, steeled and glassy. His rage sits in his shoulders and fists, clenched. His thighs tense and he leans forward, rocking, rubbing the back of his head with one hand, the other poking his temple repeatedly in the form of a gun. I look away, to her. Her chest is heaving, the musculature of her face suppressing tears.