why is it i'm always up in the wee hours with a rumbling stomach and not a crumb for for the having. experience should have taught me to build mountains of provisions in my room, but the only mountains happening in here are of books and dirty laundry. afterall i've just come from home where you can go out anytime of the night and find good food and, more importantly, where it is always warm out. waiting for the sun to rise and for the buses to begin running so that i can reach victuals, and fretting about the undone work for tomorrow and wondering where to start. i wonder if there's good trafficking in livy for whom i'm quickly developing a liking. otherwise there's a copy of the norton anthology of american lit on the bed to which i'm giving distasteful eye. nay i lie. i need to catch up on american lit. ARGH! i bought two copies of the same volume of the norton eng lit. am i blind or what. in fact, i must have been very befuddled, becos, already owning the previous edition of vol 1, i meant only to buy vol 2, so why had i taken two books? i shall hotfoot it over to the bookstore when it is light. and i really shouldn't be rereading nightwatch for the twenty thousandth time, but. night watch! if you think a watch story can't do without carrot and angua and the rest of them, think again! vimes is MAGNIFICENT in this one. and, has anyone wondered what havelock vetinari was like as a teenager?! actually, i'm not sure if i have ever imagined vetinari to have a youth, let alone family, especially not an aunt in the form of a genua lady. a trifle sentimental, the vetinari bits, although that's not to say he isn't machiavellian as always. you also meet nobby and colon as young people, cameos by cut-me-own-throat dibbler in his first week of business, a glimpse of a sixteen year old sybil ramkin waving a sword at vimes, willikins the butler only a scullery boy, two different patricians, lots of early ankh-morpork history (and geography), including the frequently alluded to revolution. and reg shoe appears too, you'd never think of him the same way again. you'll also find out about john keel, vimes's mentor. vimes, i repeat, is magnificent. p.s. lady sybil delivers safely a baby boy. and yes, she calls him sam!