Book Block

I have a penchant for reading and books. Every change of the seasons brings with it for me a new tone, if you will; a new feeling in the air and thus a craving for certain types of books. Fall has a somber and ominous tone and I love reading dark stories or mysteries and especially around Halloween, I usually cave and grab for anything Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King. Winter time is clean and bright and Dickensian almost, spring has a fresh coming of age tint to it and summer....ahhhh, summer. Summer is light and fluffy and beachy, and ridden with sunny guilty pleasures.

I have to admit, though, of late, I have not kept up with my reading. I get almost mad at myself and when I don't have a stack in order sitting right next to my bed, I almost panic. I feel slightly lost. I think I have wandered into that strange no-man's land yet again.

I've been reading up on cleanses and detoxification, but man cannot subsist on non-fiction alone and so I randomly picked up a Mitch Albom novel at the library a few weeks ago. I read it. I liked it after a while. Kind of depressing, a little preachy, interesting style and in the end, it leaves you with some happy food for thought. I picked up another one. Not the best idea for me. I tend to get a little annoyed with a writer's style if I read a number of their novels back to back. I have read the first five pages of For One More Day three times. And it is not a long book, so what is the problem? I am also reading what I thought was going to be an inspiring story of one woman overcoming a childhood and young adulthood of obsession with her weight and learning to love herself as she is and her quest for health, not size. Thin is the New Happy is not that book. Hm. Also have been reading that book for some time. I am not in any hurry to pick up either too quickly and so now what?

My husband pokes fun at me because I have a booklist online with the library. I think I have about eighty books on there that I am interested in reading. Furthermore, I have random stacks of books floating about our bedroom of books that I have bought (all on sale from the library at $3 per ginormous bag!!) and they are collecting dust. So?

The problem seems to be this: I have gone overboard. I have never been, but I can only imagine those all-you-can-eat buffets in Vegas where they have every food and dessert imaginable under the sun. I would believe that it would be almost crippling to eat there. Not only for your health, but to decide on a few small items that one could conceivably consume in one meal and then to sit and enjoy them wondering the whole time of you picked the best and most delicious combinations of foods that you could be wanting at that particular point in time. Should there be seconds? Where to start? Where to end? Too many choices! Yes, I have created too many choices.

Oh and we can't forget the rules. If you don't already know how deep the crazy is in my rabbit hole, then this will probably clue you in. I have to read a book in it's entirety ie: if I have a scholastic publication of a certain novel, I must and will read all the commentary and notes even down to copyright info ad infinitum. I feel like I gain more understanding of the author and the frame of the book that way. Maybe that's just me or maybe that's literati everywhere. I really don't know, but that's the way of it with me. This may or may not include an independent search of the author and/or events surrounding a certain novel. It all really depends. So that's that. Maybe I am getting too bogged down by all of this. Maybe it's just that carefree summer-ness which just indicates that a fluffy sunny read is necessary to clear out and calm down the madness?

Yes, I think that's just what it might be. Okay, I am starting to feel better already. Vacuum and swiffer? Nah. Dishes? Pooh! Sort and stack up top ten fluffy summer reads? OKAY! I love the smell of paper in the afternoon!