I buy a lot of books. Or, I should say I buy books often – but I seldom have the chance to read them. Since doing time in baby-prison, I haven’t been reading novels nearly as much as I like to. Constant interruptions from The Little People makes this an impossibility. But I am determined to read something other than the daily news (which is, of course, necessary, but not often uplifting) and short articles from the magazines I subscribe to. They’re just not nearly as satisfying… and I love getting sucked into a book of some kind. I think I relish the escape a great read can provide, and I almost never get to go on vacation.
I love words.
The trouble is sometimes deciding which book to read.. what will this one be like? Is it worth my precious, invested time? Will I turn the last page, and want to turn the opened book upside and start shaking it, as if to see if there’s something more to it that I might have missed? I hate that feeling. I feel as if my time was wasted. And then I say, “Aw… balls.”
Sometimes I’ll finish a book, perhaps with a surprise ending, that makes me hurl the book across the room and start weeping… husband comes running, asking me what’s happened, and I’ll say, “Goddamned book… I HATED it! I loved it. It was wonderfully, horribly good. Ack. I’m not reading another book for a while. Fuck.” My poor husband hugs me and pats me on the head like I’m a mental patient. He’s a good man.
Bastard out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison made me feel that way. Others will leave me feeling rather stunned and pensive for days afterward, like Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Wonderfully, heartbreaking reads, both. Any book I try to read shortly after a book like that always seems lacking by comparison… so I’ll go back to magazines for a while.
Here’s a short, random list of what’s on my shelf these days… not sure where to begin. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
And make it quick – I’ll need something to devour once I’m done with that damned Twilight series I totally got tricked into reading by one of my bitches closest friends.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
Death With Interruptions by José Saramago
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Letters of Allan Ginsberg edited by Bill Morgan
