Category Archives: Reading

More Reading (Non-RAS)

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So, in addition to my RAS challenge I am also reading things on my Kindle and Nook devices. Some for book group, and some for just because. All of these books are worthwhile reading, so go ahead and enjoy one or all of them.

A few months ago Barnes and Noble emailed me to tell me I had three hours to spend $7.59. The only thing I could do was fire up my Nook and search for a book I wanted to read on it. (I don’t love my new Nook Glowlight — it feels cheap compared to my Kindle Paperwhite). I eventually chose The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I read it in two nights, staying up late to do so. My book group is now reading it — I am pretty sure they will be critical, but I don’t care. It was a fun read.

Shortly after the the Charleston, NC AME Church shooting a Facebook friend mentioned that she’d heard of the Charleston church and Denmark Vesey in a book by Sue Monk Kidd called The Invention of Wings. I’d read Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees a few years ago, so I knew she was a great writer, so I downloaded The Invention of Wings in Illinois, before we returned to Maryland and began reading it on the drive home. I finished it a couple of nights ago and when I read the author’s note was surprised to discover it was fact based. I knew Denmark Vesey was a real person and the church was real, but I didn’t realize that everything, including the two main characters, Sarah and her sister Nina, were really abolitionists and crusaders for women’s rights. I’m really glad I read this book. It was well written and I learned a lot.

For book group last month we read Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. While reading it I declared to anyone who would listen that it was the most well-written book I’d read in a long while. I still think so — and I am not the only person who does. I was at a dinner party and another guest (a professional writer herself) mentioned the book and said it was so well-written she wanted to go through the book and list all the verbs. All the Light We Cannot See is about a blind French girl and a German boy whose lives are connected and whose paths intersect near the end of World War II.

Thoughts on reading and reclaiming the joy

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Now that I have begun to read again (hallelujah!) I’ve been thinking of why I quit — or at least slowed down and what I can do to continue to read. It is not that I quit enjoying reading — it is more that I found other things to do instead including the Internet, playing games on my tablet, and enjoying that third glass of wine.

Another thing I did that did actually restrict my joy of reading was be too critical. At some point in the past 10 years I thought I needed to be on guard while reading and be as critical as possible. I no longer read for the sake of reading. I “needed” to be ready to either argue why I liked or disliked a character or scene or plot.

Reading like that takes energy and takes the fun out of reading. If I like something — great. If I don’t, then that’s fine. Did the story move me in some way? Yes? Good. No? Then move on. No need to be all critical — maybe the book that moved me didn’t move someone else and maybe the book that didn’t, did move someone else. No need to waste energy arguing the point.

So some of you wondered why I [really] decided to do the Read a Shelf project. The answer is because I’ve used many ways to relax all my life and reading was my favorite until I made it a burden by being critical. If I am reading I am not wasting my time on games or the Internet. (By wasting time I don’t mean reading blog posts or writing them — I also don’t mean meaningful FB interaction.)

Anyway — I should go now, I have some reading to do.

RAS 3: The Book of Ruth — Jane Hamilton

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I couldn’t tell you where this book came from. I am sure it was not new when I got it — I probably picked it up from a used book store after reading and liking Jane Hamilton‘s second book, A Map of the World.

What I liked most about the extremely depressing A Map of the World was that it took place in Wisconsin. While I don’t know the area of Wisconsin in which this book took place, the fact that it was in Wisconsin made me happy, despite the subject matter.

The Book of Ruth is also depressing, but very well-written and the story is engrossing. The Book of Ruth takes place in Honey Creek a (made-up) small town in Northern Illinois on the border of Wisconsin.

Honey Creek is way up in the very north of Illinois. If you lean over the Abendroths’ back fence your torso is in Wisconsin.

I tried to plot where the town could be by clues in the story.

  • Borders Wisconsin
  • 40 miles from DeKalb
  • Rockford is closest big city

I figured it was somewhere near Harvard, Illinois. I have probably been there. Dean was there just last week. Ruth’s Aunt Sid (from the book) lives in DeKalb — where I went to college and near where Dean’s brother lives.

The Book of Ruth centers on young Ruth, the daughter of a bitter, likely depressed, woman named May and an absent father named Elmer. Ruth has a brother, Matt, who is brilliant and who eventually escapes to MIT. Ruth marries a local man, Ruby, who may or may not be developmentally delayed. The book is about dysfunctional families living in poverty and what they do to survive.

I’ll continue reading Jane Hamilton (happily she’s written at least two more books) but will wait a while in case her other stories are as depressing as A Map of the World (social ostracization) and The Book of Ruth (poverty, depression).

Stats 298 pages. Started June 14. Finished June 26.