Robert Burns had it right.

The best laid plans after all . . .

But, rather than bore anyone reading with why it’s taken me months to update the “Year of Reading Dangerously,” I will just scurry on through.

After all, nobody needs a meditation on how our best intended plans spiral horridly out of control as crises erupt from spoiled milk to insane work schedules.

I have no doubt we all meditate on that subject daily if not hourly.

But, I find I must bow to Mr. Burns and to words of advice I received in a dark hour in college while deciding to abandon my art history honors project because my heart had gone over to the journalistic Dark Side and a Harvard professor had already written more and better on my topic than I, a not-so-humble undergraduate could ever hope to.

I was sagely counseled to let it go.

And, unfortunately, the same advice holds true with my project.

It’s not that I haven’t been reading dangerously.

I have.

John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men was read months ago.

But life, jobs, destiny, what have you, have prevented me from writing.

And circumstances have prevented me from doing justice to “My Year of Reading Dangerously.”

So, rather than try to scrape up two more reviews before Banned Books Weeks 2010, I will leave off here.

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well and thoughtfully.

My brain is entirely consumed at present with helping move a younger sister in Nashville, finishing another of my children’s books that perhaps someday (after much editing and many rejection letters to come) might find their ways to bookstores. I am hampered by a needy Basset Hound, juries going to verdict and teaching a young lady of ten how to read. Oh, and exercise in that ever present attempt to drop even more pounds per my doctor’s orders than the 40 or so that leave me at my current – healthy but not ideal – weight. Oh, and recycling and reading Salon to stay  informed and catching up on Futurama.

So, you, my fellow readers see, “The best laid plans o’mice and men . . .”

For me, they’ve definitely “gang oft agley.”

But, it is my hope that perhaps in reading the few reviews I managed to post, you might have reconsidered why a book may be “banned.” Or picked up that old classic to enjoy a new.

Or discovered something new.

I hope to retool this blog someday and begin writing it a new. I hope luck’s and life’s on my side next time.

So, for a final time – albeit too soon – read dangerously!