Monday, May 18, 2009

BOOKS

It turns out that since finishing grad school I've rediscovered my love of reading. As a kid I was totally the shy girl who loved reading. My favorites... Baby-sitter's Club, Sweet Valley High, and morbidly all these books about teenagers with terminal illnesses with titles like 6 Months to Live. Then, I'd say some time around Junior High or High School I totally stopped reading for fun. But I'll tell you one of the best things about not being in school is that no one is making me read or telling me what to read. I get to pick! Here are some of my favorites from the last few months.


Have you ever read a mediocre book and when you finish it you're in a hurry to start another book to get the taste of the past book out of your mouth? (eg - Memory Keeper's Daughter... I hated that book and I'm pretty sure I started another book like an hour after finishing it) Well with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao it was the exact opposite experience. It took me at least a weekend to finally pick up another book from my to-read stack and even then I was really sad to be leaving those characters behind. I just wanted to have Oscar and Lola and Beli and La Inca in my life a little longer. So just read it. And bonus - have a spanish-speaking friend translate the little Spanish bits in it and you'll learn a lot of Spanish swears.




Thanks to Kaylene for recommending I Capture the Castle to me. I cannot believe I survived my late childhood and adolesence without this book in my life. I was hooked from the first line.... "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." Brilliant. Totally charming. Like a more hormonal and quirky Jane Austen. I giggled to myself throughout most of the book and found myself interrupting conversations to read passages to my roommates. Just brilliant. Totally adorable.