Books

In December I bought a Nook. The first week I had it, I entertained myself playing Angry Birds, Scrabble, Words with Friends, and doing crossword puzzles. Eventually, I bought some books and started reading.

I read all three books comprising The Hunger Games trilogy. I read them in the span of a week. That in and of itself is a review since I had all but given up on reading for quite some time. Actually, a few months ago, I read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Encouraged not only by the fact that I read Ishiguro's novel in a weekend, I decided it was time to forge ahead with my newly reborn attention span.


The Hunger Games kept me up late and found me reading on my lunch break. I don't actually take a proper lunch break, but for a week it was the highlight of my day.

Next, I delved into Wicked. Being a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz, particularly of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, I felt it was my duty to read the book that so many people had asked me if I had read. Well, that, and I have tickets to see the show later this year and I wanted to read the book before seeing the theatrical interpretation.


Wicked was a long haul. It challenged me as a reader, but eventually, it drew me in and I came to be truly fond of Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch of the West. This book also helped me discover the dictionary function that is built into the reading tools of the Nook. I used it often, as Gregory Maguire seems to have a real need to show off his extensive knowledge of obscure English vocabulary. Note from my college journalism classes: Don't use a twenty-dollar word when a five-dollar word will do. It's distracting and pretentious. Fortunately, the overall story was able to overcome the burden of the vocabulary.

A couple of weeks ago, Barnes & Noble recommended that I buy Damned by Chuck Palahniuk. I hit the buy button on the Nook and started reading moments after the download completed. This book immediately took over my life and held onto it the entire time I was reading the story. Whereas The Hunger Games was an action thriller with a touch of social commentary, Damned was an extended social commentary packaged as young adult fiction. The New York Times called it, "a book full of tastelessly hilarious gallows humor about a teenage girl in hell." I had no idea that Hell could be so entertaining.

But it was more than entertaining. Damned kept me thinking about the story, the satire, the heartbreak, life as a misfit, and the points Palahniuk was trying to make about how we live our lives in these modern times. It is also laugh-out-loud funny and has imagery vivid enough to thoroughly gross you out. My take-away was that I'm definitely going to Hell, and I'm eager for a sequel to this book. Loved it.

The newest book on my Nook is called Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Rides Again. So far, the title is the best thing about this book. I keep finding other things to do rather than read it. It takes a lot for a book to overcome my general lack of an attention span, and so far, Free-Range Knitter doesn't have it.


Once I find another engaging book, I'll take a break from blogging again. I think that's how this is going to work. The books distract me from the traffic jams of thoughts in my head, while the blog forces me to face them and tease them apart. That is an exhausting and often unpleasant exercise. Books are easier. Much easier.