i'm gonna pray for you so hard

Read cousin Halley's play, having bought it for myself when it came out a few months ago. It's very dark and painful, which I suppose I knew already. It's also the first play I've read in a long time, and maybe the first contemporary (i.e. non-Shakespeare, non-Greek) play I've read since high school. The closeness of alignment between the script and the production surprised me, although I'm not sure why it did. Perhaps because in reading a work of prose, or even poetry, the way you're challenged to imaginatively invest in a scene is much more a collaboration between the author's writing itself and your own imagination. A play script is spare. 

strong poison

My first Dorothy Sayers. There is something very satisfying about a detective story well-told. This one isn't on the level of Holmes but it was fun to read all the same. 

the gap of time

Cute, enjoyed it. Wouldn't throw it to the top of anyone's list unless they were on the hunt for Shakespeare fan fic. The Winter's Tale is a pretty fucked-up story.

SPQR

Shockingly efficient overview of Rome from Romulus and mythical early history through the expansion of citizenship to all free residents of the empire by Caracalla in the early third century CE. Very informative. Still not quite sure why I read it.