Read a good book lately?

One of my summer pleasures is reading. I read a little during the school year, but I find myself either falling asleep after a few pages, or reading so slowly that my library book is due to be returned before I finish it. So now I look forward to having much more time to pursue this pleasant pastime. Have you read a good book lately? I have favorite authors and topics I return to, but I’m always open to suggestions. I would never have read the Daniel Silva spy series or Dan Brown’s novels if my son hadn’t told me about them. So if you’ve read a good book lately, let me know so I can put it on my summer list.

I’ve always loved to read. It was my escape from poverty and work when I was a child. I “lived”, at least from page one to the end, within the world I read about. And if I wasn’t actually reading, I was imagining myself in that world. That’s how I escaped while I spent hours tying grape vines or hoeing cotton rows. And there were so many worlds to explore! I read books about horse farms and alien planets and pirate ships and jungle paradises.

My library card was dog-eared and faded from constant use. Even though we moved a lot, we usually found a library nearby. When we lived in and around Fresno, CA there was the big library downtown and several branch libraries and even a book-mobile that visited the outlying farm communities. And of course there was the school library. My friend Elaine and I took turns winning the library’s summer reading program.  One year she beat me by one book! If I had known we were that close I would have stayed up all night to finish another one! J

My husband is also an avid reader and we have talked before about people who don’t read. I feel sorry for them. How can someone go through life with an imagination fed only by television, movies, and reality? Books have the power to release your imagination in a way that can’t be matched by other mediums. If you watch an alien creature in a science fiction movie you accept the creation of another person- you watch their version of the alien. Entertaining, yes. However, if you read about an alien creature in a book, and imagine it in your mind, it becomes your alien. Even if the description is detailed and specific, you will unconsciously add things to it that make it personal. That is one of the reasons why movies based on our favorite books are so often a disappointment. They don’t match what we have imagined.

So…I’ve rambled enough for the morning. Send me the titles of a few good books, or tell me about your favorite author. I’m ready for hours and hours of reading.  (And yes, I’m still reading through this annoying group of floating dots and squiggles, but I choose to ignore them and read anyway. I’ve given up on them going away.)

Comments

[Megan]

I don't know if you've read the Harry Potter series, and I'm a little late coming to that game, but I just read all of the books over a two week period and found them delightful, engaging, and surprisingly creative. Definitely falls in the "mind candy" reading. It's not going to make you a better or smarter person, but it was a fun way to spend some imagination hours.

And here! here! on your preference to create your own images and scenes instead of being confined to someone else's version. Bravo for them for expressing, creating and entertaining the masses, but it's not my cup of tea.

I'm still partial to Atlas Shrugged. Loved all of Terry Brook's fantasy books: again, total mind candy.

And I believe you owe your daughter(s) the Twilight series! LOL

[Dee/reddirtramblings]

I read a really good book the other day, and my son, who is 14, recommended it. It is a young adult novel called London Calling. Wonderful, uplifting and poignant story, and a good telling of the history that was the London blitz. I, too, read and escaped from the everyday as a child, and I still do.~~Dee