mood: 
determined
determinedmusic: Emerson, Lake & Palmer - I Believe in Father Christmas
I'm pretty sure I read this in college, but college was a long long time ago.
It's an excellent book, a compilation of three critical essays dealing with the ways in which white American writers have historically dealt (or attempted not to deal) with the issue of race, and the final essay--explicating Hemingway, among other things--is alone worth the price of admission.
Sounds like a good book. Sorry 'bout the musical diversion.
I have dusted off the holiday music. Most of it, pretty sardonic....
But you are right, it is weird holiday music time. I shall be dusting off loads of silly stuff: "Grandma got run over by a reindeer", "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas", and The Three Stooges managing to "Wreck the Halls with Boughs of Holly", to name but a few.
:-)
Also Gordon Lightfoot can't be anywhere near as depressing as watching the England cricket team. *sigh*
Sorry about that.
Also, Toni Morrison = Smrt. & Good riter.