I've been reading a lot lately. I tend to do this when I'm feeling a bit dragged down by the rigmarole of daily life. I like to bury myself in the lives of imaginary characters and leave dirty diapers, floors desperate for vacuuming and layers of dust on my furniture for the sweet smelling paper of a good book.
I'm not terribly picky about what read, but I limit myself to fiction, with what I always hope to be a compelling story. In my pre-mother life, I was a regular at the library. Once, for a short period, I even got to work as a librarian and I can honestly say that I felt so 100 percent at home I've considered going back to school so I can be a real librarian someday.
(As a total side note, I was once voted by my 4th grade class the most likely to become a librarian, something I was very proud of at the time.)
But, now I find myself not so excited about going to the library. I mean, I like seeing how excited my kids are at the variety of books and their delight in discovering a book they really love and want to take home, but during these visits I'm so busy ushering my children to the children's section that I never have a chance to browse anything even remotely adult-ish in nature.
So, to fix my need for fiction, I've been buying books at Target, Costco, or Walmart. While I'm usually able to find something worth reading, it's generally "chick-lit," or a nice best selling mystery. I can devour one of these in a day or two depending on the needs of my children and how long they nap.
Recently though, I've been noticing that I want to read more than what is available at the huge box stores, and went to a fabulous used book store in our town. While there I grabbed two books by Willa Cather. Years ago I read "My Antonia," and I remember liking it quite well, and have particular memories of a wolves chasing a wedding party. So I dove into Cather's "One of Ours," not sure what I was getting into, but planning to enjoy and finish it in a day or two.
I found, to my surprise, that I couldn't read more than ten or fifteen pages without needing to stop, and digest what I'd read. The words were so much meatier, so much more nutritious and fed my brain and psyche in such a way that to read more would have been overwhelming. So, I'm not saying that I'm going to only read classics from now on, but I can say that I'm much more willing to read something that may be good for me.
So, I'm open to recommendations--for both serious and light fiction.
4 comments:
i wish I read more. I have been a major slacker about it the last few years.
I haven't really read anything that I would say is amazing in the last while, although there have been some ok "Airplane Book" reads I have done the last bit.
I miss you
I get to read about 10% of how much I would really like to.
My best most recent reads are What is the What (only semi-fictional, but compeling) by Dave Eggers and then The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (really intriguing and original, although there is language and stuff).
I order a lot of books online, and you can buy them used, which is swell.
I studied Willa Cather my Junior year in high school, and a recent discussion of Cather eventually brought about the creation of a new book club. It is comprised of eight women that went through most of our high school english classes together, and so far it has been smashing. Oh yeah, we alternate reading classics with newer books, and Jane Eyre was as fabulous as when I last read it ten years ago.
Good luck. "Sam I Am" doesn't cut it for very long.
"What Is the What" is actually on my "to read" list. I also just read a fantasy novel which I loved. It incorporated several fairy tales and vampiric ledgends of Transalyvania. A strange mixture but it worked. It was called "Wildwood Dancing" by Juliet Marillier.
I took a literary topics class at USU and we studied Cather's works. I really enjoyed them but I confess I must attribute a lot of that to my excellent professor.
You may try Paulo coelho's Alchemist!!
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