Since

It was less curiosity than inertia which led me to finish The Pest House Saturday evening. Jim Crace's grim but not nihilistic portrait of an America which "used to be the safest place on Earth," was more of a peripatetic than the bleak collapse of the grid that we have gripped so steadily. There isn't much else to say, my opinion of Crace remains high, though the execution of this endeavor did leave much to be desired.

I then read Dreamers, a short novel by Knut Hamsun. I liked the wit and the allure of the rural Norwegians and the chemistry of spring.