On A True Love
Summer vacation to me as a child meant swimming lessons in the Long Island Sound, jumping off the diving board of my cousin Tom’s pool while singing showtunes, gnawing corn off the cob on a picnic bench and going to the public library once a week and filling my arms with as many books as I could carry.
I love to swim and I love to sing and laugh and I love to eat but I think if I had to choose something I love more than anything in the world, it is quite possibly opening a really good book and diving in.
I prefer fiction. I always have. Less people read fiction than you might think. I have only dated one person who regularly reads novels, the very first love of my life. That was over ten years ago and oddly enough, we are still in touch and every few months we shoot each other a text with a book suggestion. That little exchange is invaluable to me.
My favorite novels are contemporary fiction though I read some classics too. (Virginia Woolf is way harder than I thought she’d be.) And just this year I read “Lord of the Flies” and “Of Mice and Men” for the first time ever. WHAT? Is that crazy to anyone else? What exactly were my high school English teachers doing?
(The answer: embezzling money. A few years after I graduated, my AP English Language teacher was arrested. So, he did teach me Faulkner but he was also kind of…a criminal?)
I like non-fiction too! Of course I do! Lots of things in life are so very interesting! AND NOW I SHALL READ ABOUT THEM! And bring them up at dinner parties because who are you in this town if you don’t read the latest Malcolm Gladwell? HONESTLY.
But really? I just prefer wonderful, suck-me-in fake stories. I am addicted to the feeling of not being able to go to sleep because what happens next? One more page, one more page!
I recently became completely enthralled with a book, a big book, which is delightful to me because I hate when a book is over too soon. A 200 page novel? WHAT IS THE POINT?!
No, but. This book is long. And the writing just pulled me in and I took it with me to the nail salon the other evening and…I left it there.
I LEFT THE BOOK BEHIND.
By the time I realized it, the nail salon had closed and due to some commitments in other parts of the city, I wasn’t able to retrieve the book for TWO WHOLE DAYS.
Do you know what it’s like to be in the middle of a really good story and then…BLACKOUT?
IT IS A NIGHTMARE!
I was so distraught and so frustrated (because I couldn’t possibly pick up another book and start something NEW!) that I actually went to a news stand and bought Oprah magazine.
I KNOW. WHO AM I ANYMORE?!!?!?
You’ll be glad to know that I finally got the book back last night. The manicurist held up two books before she found mine.
NO! THAT’S NOT IT! I said, as politely as I could while trying not to lose my freaking mind.
THAT ISN’T IT EITHER!
A young girl getting her nails done stared at me.
It is a REALLY good book, I explained.
Finally, THERE IT WAS! The manicurist held it out to me and I snatched it up and clutched it to my chest because OH HAPPY DAY! We are back together at last! Reunited in everlasting love!!
I’m telling you this because I just wanted you to know how I’ve been spending my time lately and also to ask you if you have any good reading recommendations for the rest of my summer? This novel will take me another week, I predict but after that, I’m out of ideas. Any kind of book is good except fantasy/sci-fi shit because I’m sorry, that is not my bag.
DO TELL, people! What are you reading?
And have a wonderful literary summer weekend!
(c) starsmending
“Revenge” by Stephen Fry and “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. I liked the second one more than the first. I enjoyed them both a lot, super fast reads, but the second one was captivating.
I just finished VACLAV AND LENA, an amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking novel (but warning – IT IS TOO SHORT!) that actually brings you back to “I’m a teenager in love for the first time and OH MY GOD IT IS SO AMAZING, HOW CAN ANYONE EVEN LIVE THROUGH THIS???”
Haha! Sci-Fi/Fantasy is not my bag, either! That made me laugh out loud. I admit, I am more of a non-fiction reader, but joining a book club has gotten me reading a lot more novels. Currently we are reading “The Thirteenth Tale” which is pretty intriguing and I like the writing, but also sort of odd. Everyone in our book club loved The Help, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I loved the book Prisoner of Tehran, which is actually a memoir but it is written like a novel and will totally suck you in. Are you on GoodReads?
Um, how could you say so much about the greatness of this book and NOT include the title? I want to read it!
I just finished a book called “Revolution” by Jennifer Donnelly that I was really into. Before that the “New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance,” a memoir by Elna Baker, had me hooked.
Uh yeah, I’m with Jill: WHAT WAS THE BOOK???
I am currently re-reading “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant and highly recommend. I originally read it several years back, and I feel it’s one of those books all women should read.
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Peter Gay. Not about religious heretics but cultural ones. Its the history of the modernist movement, so like Baudelaire, Manet, Virginia Woolf, etc. Its been slow goings though because I pick it up and read a chapter then I let it go for like 2 weeks. Too much time on the internet reading articles, not enough time in real life with books.
Best books I’ve read: The Stand by Stephen King. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins. The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell. Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Best Sci-Fi: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
Best Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
You’re missing out.
Currently reading: Under the Dome by Stephen King.
“Ahab’s Wife” by Sena Jeter Naslund
I’m a many-books-at-once kind of gal. Currently I’m on my yearly Harry Potter re-read (Book 5), along with Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, and Hector and the Secrets of Love by Francois Lelord.
My favorite books are “I Know This Much is True” by Wally Lamb, “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova and “The Great Santini” by Pat Conroy. I was really enjoying “The Custom of the Country” by Edith Wharton but then my Kindle died and I can’t finish it – boo.
Some of my book club favorites not mentioned previously, were “On the Divinity of Second Chances” by Kaya McLaren, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein, “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, “The Commoner” by John Burnham Schwartz, “The Long Fall” by Walter Mosley, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” by Helen Simonson, “Sarah’s Key” by Tadiana de Rosnay, “Homer’s Odyssey” by Gwen Cooper and “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave.
You must read David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is one of my favorites. “An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination” is an incredible memoir by Elizabeth McCracken.
And please, what is the name of the book you wrote about?!
All of Tom Robbins’ novels. He is my most favorite author I actually am rereading his works after reading them 20 years ago, he is wonderful! My 2 favs by him are SKINNY LEGS AND ALL, and STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER. Just judging by your blog, he is right up your alley! I have to agree THE RED TENT is great and anything by David Seddaris is wonderful as well. Yes, please, what was the book?
WOAH, thanks guys! And sorry for not also sharing! The book is “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen. (I just finished his earlier novel, “The Corrections”, and super loved it. Another fantastic recent read for me was Emma Donoghue’s “Room”.
Currently reading “Love In The Time of Cholera” as a delicious appetizer to “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. Marquez is such a master that I am ashamed I hadn’t given myself the pleasure of his writing earlier.
I have “Freedom” and will now have to bump it to the top of my non-Marquez queue!
What Virginia Woolf did you read? She is one of my favorite authors…. Sometimes takes some time to get into her rhythm, but once you do it is a revelation (for me at least). Also, I am generally a no sic-fi/fantasy person, too, but Tim is on the money. “Ender’s Game” kinda rocks