For the first few years after grad school I held true. I didn't even think about it, really. Reading just wasn't part of my life. I did read a book recommended by a friend here and there, but I wasn't reading more than one or two books per year. And that would have been a "good" year.
2013 was different for a reason I still haven't put my finger on. I started reading again. I spent beautiful summer afternoons lying in our burgundy hammock gently rocked by a breeze under the shade of a towering pine tree canopy, book in hand. I loved it.
Last summer I read Damien Echols's Life After Death, J.K. Rowling's two adult fiction books, and Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek. I know it doesn't sound like much, but for me it was.
Then fall arrived early with its chilly anti-hammock breezes and my reading stopped.
But I'm back! I just finished Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl which was my second book of the year. I'm not well read enough to be able to offer a review that anyone would find interesting let alone useful so I won't even try.
I'm reminded of an exchange in the book: "'Yeah, right. Something Wicked This Way Comes,' Greta says. 'It's good.' She chirps the last bit as if that were all to say about a book: It's good or it's bad. I liked it or I didn't. No discussions of the writing, the themes, the nuances, the structure. Just good or bad. Like a hot dog."
Yup. Don't worry, Greta. That's my level too.
1. Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold: I loved it. Now one of my favourite books.
2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: I really hated that I really liked it. Does that make sense? I need to find copies of her two other books, just to see what I really think. It was weird to find out today that they're turning this book into a movie with Ben Affleck. Then again, maybe I should have seen that one coming.
Next on the list is Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Eiko, that one's because of you.
