"I must fight this sickness, find a cure."

This was SUCH a quality book.
Self-described as a "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable," Ella Minnow Pea takes place on the fictional island of Nollop, named after the man who invented the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In memory of the island's most prolific citizen, a statue has been erected of Nollop in the town center, with the historic sentence surrounding it. Well, one by one, tiles being to fall from the sentence. Taking this as a sign from the great beyond, the island's Council decides Nollop is challenging them to do without whatever letter has just fallen. As the people of Nollop brush aside letters, so does Mark Dunn, the author. One by one, bits of the alphabet disappear from the novel until the only ones left are LMNOP (coincidentally, the name of the book's protagonist...A-HA!).
I won't spoil how it ends, but this book is just insanely clever. I sat in awe from page one until the end, with a massive sh*t-eating grin on my face because HOW AWESOMELY INVENTIVE! And the language, epistolary style, and narrative are just so charming and whimsical. It's a sweet, brilliant tale and an absolute MUST-READ for logophiles everywhere.
I absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for an enjoyable, quick read, but especially to people who love letters, word play, and vocabularistic challenges.


In other news, no, I'm not better, but thanks to all 2 of you who asked. I now have a sinus infection and bronchitis, which I figured would be the case. It's always been thus. Even when I was little...like, Michael would get a cold and two days later he'd be running around playing. I'd get the same cold and two days later I'd be breathing out of a tube in the hospital. If you know an asthmatic, hug them. It's not contagious, I promise.

So I don't know how much longer I'll have to miss school and stuff, but I barely have the energy to go downstairs, much less trudge my way through UCF. *sigh*

I have been doing lots of reading (like, weeks' worth. However, I still don't know what to write my paper on...the one that's due in a week. Yeah.), watching "Pushing Daisies," "The Office," and "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (since laughter's the best medicine. I FIRMLY BELIEVE THIS.), and becoming a Spider Solitaire champ. Bixby's thrilled though, because instead of leaving him every day to go DO STUFF I basically go from room to room and just lie there. And he's overjoyed that I'm partaking in his favorite activities (namely, sleeping and doing nothing). So he's well-pleased.