My choices generally include:
1) Writing. I love to write. This blog, my novel, diaries of my kids' antics, funny facebook posts; most are not a chore for me .
2) Exercise. A chore, definitely a chore. I know some people who love to exercise and I know they are not crazy, but the day I say I love to exercise, you might want to check which vitamins I've been taking and which country they were made in.
3) Spending time with friends. This is a rare choice since my friends are all as busy with above mentioned things as I am, so this takes months of planning and happens maybe once a month.
4) Spending time with my husband. See #3. Ok, this happens more often than once a month, because we live in the same house, but since we're tired, it usually includes #5
5) Watch TV. This happens often. We binge-watch Netflix series. Right now we're on Season 7 of Friends. I miss those guys.
And we come to number 6, the big winner, which usually happens above all else: reading. It's just the best. I love my friends and my husband (many of whom are reading this, I hope) but, sorry guys, my book is more available than you are. And the people in my book understand when I fall asleep on them in the middle of a sentence. So yes, most of what I've been doing these days is reading. These books, as a matter of fact.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Novel by Alice Hoffman
If you don't recognize this book, try looking at the second image. It seems that it's the more common book cover based on a Google search. I'm not sure which I prefer, just like I'm not sure what I think of this book. I wish someone would tell me what to think. It's by the author of The Dovekeepers, which is why I read it (I actually think I gave it to my mom and she gave it back to me and then I may have accidentally turned it in to the library. Sorry, Mom.)
I loved the history in The Dovekeepers and I love in this one the historical look at New York in the Industrial Age, but I don't love any of the characters until near the end. It's a boy meets girl story set against a background of a human wonders museum/freak show, a factory fire and the ensuing
political and social fall out, the development of old New York, and the coming of age of a lonely girl and an Orthodox Jewish boy. It has all the elements that made Dovekeepers so great, except the female relationships, but is a little slower moving and somehow, even though you don't know the end like you do with the historical Masada in Dovekeepers, it's less climactic. I don't know. Read it and tell me what you think.
Chesnut Street
Short Stories by Maeve Binchy
I know what I think of Dame Maeve, though. I adore her. Here is a girl that I would get out of my pj's to spend time with, and that's high praise. I don't think I've read everything by Maeve but only because she's written so very much. When I saw this on the new books list of the library mail service, I was surprised and pleased, because I thought Maeve was dead. Turns out she is, and I am so sad, but I am so glad that her husband scraped the bottoms of her desk drawers for these short stories and collected them into a book for us, her grieving readers.
I just get so much comfort from her writing. It's earthy and real, with twists you come to expect and characters you come to love. Even though the short stories don't always have happy endings, they leave you thinking the world is an ok place to be. I need that kind of story when so many of my students' lives are terrible and the news is terrible and apparently most of our favorite foods are terrible. This is about people, with faults, who eventually make good or bad decisions but they turn out more or less okay, told with a sense of humor. It's my go-to, feel good, kind of book.
Please tell me, what do you read when you need to feel good? Because Dame Maeve is gone and I can re-read her forever but I may need a new go-to now and then. Thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment