I've Lost It

My book, that is.  I've lost my book and I don't know where to find it.  This isn't just any book, mind you.  It is the book that I am currently reading (well, not quite currently, because I don't know where it is) and dying to finish.  It's  a lovely bright red, cloth bound copy of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (a.k.a. the devil book).  I'm nearly done with it--I was carrying it around with me everywhere--and I need to know how it ends!

My public library--with 12 branches, in a city of a half-million people--has one copy at the main branch (a.k.a. the part of town I don't like taking all my kids to)  One copy?  I'm torn.  Where did my book go?  This just doesn't happen to me!

The Master and Margarita has been on my bookshelf for a year.  Waiting To Be Read.  A year ago, on the Fourth of July weekend, I was finishing reading War and Peace when a Russian friend told me that I needed to read The Master and Margarita: the one book he actually finished during his high school years in Siberia.  How do I refuse a book recommendation like that?  So, not knowing anything about the book, (except that Everyman's Library published it--I love Everyman's Library cloth bound books, someday I'll have them all,) I bought it and put it on my shelf.

It is totally NOT my type of book.  It is a political statement about Russian Communism at it's core, but the storyline is that of the devil visiting Moscow and wreaking havoc.  I'm really not into sci-fi (just ask my husband) or fantasy (have yet to be able to read all of the LOTR books). I didn't enjoy Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, of which The Master and Margarita reminds me of somewhat.  But this book is so well written that the novelty just doesn't wear off.  My eyebrows have gotten quite the workout reading this book, and there have been a few laugh-out-loud moments.  The fact that I'm dying without it, NEED to finish, must say something.

If you find it, can you let me know?