Recent Reads

Recent Reads

I've belonged to my current book club for a year and in that year, I never once actually read a book in it's entirety before any meeting.  Nothing to be proud of, but it makes me laugh at myself, and I usually could glean enough from reviews and what others in the group said to have a few opinions about the books.  I loved to read when I was young.  As a kid, I would sneak up in the middle of the night and read in my closet if I could get away with it.  Once I started having kids though, it was a lot harder to find the time to read, and if I did find something good, I didn't want to put it down and tend to ANYONE!  Makes for a mean, cranky bitch of a mom, when one tries to stay up all night reading too!  I sort of chalked reading up to a luxury I couldn't afford. Thankfully, I've found time to read again.

I've tried the last couple years to get back into reading, but sometimes the  book doesn't sound interesting to me.  Other times, my mind wanders too much, or I will start and forget about it for a few weeks!  Other times, I feel like my vision is not what it should be to read.  I alternate between reading with my glasses on and then I've got them on top of my head.  Problem is then I decide I need them in front of my eyes again and the damn nose piece catches on my hair and snags a few good strands out.  I'll have a bald spot on top of my head soon if I don't watch out.

Thankfully, I asked for a Kindle a few years ago, and THAT has made a huge difference in my reading ability because I can alter the size of the letters and that makes it a lot easier to read.  I can even read while on a stationery bike or treadmill.  I couldn't do that with a regular book very easily because of the small print.  I've almost convinced myself that I NEED the newer Kindle Fire, but if you ask me why, I have no clue!  So, I'll muddle through with my old Kindle and save some money.

This month, remarkably, I've read three books entirely, though I will admit that I was finishing up the last 10 percent of "The Life of Pi" while waiting and then riding on the City Cat, to meet the book group at the movie theatre where we were going to watch it in 3D.  So glad I read that book first.  I think if I hadn't, there would be so much that didn't make sense to me in the movie!  The movie is a beautifully photographed show.  The book was interesting to me, but the whole concept of "a story that will make you believe in God" was just a lot of whooey to me.  I enjoyed the book, it was a quick 2 day read for me and I loved the whole setting, in India, because I think there is a lot of richness in that and I'm attracted to India and Indian food and people.

I do think there was a theme, of "faith" within in the book.  You can choose to believe either story Pi tells, and it all boils down to faith and if you are a kind of person who can handle truth and reality or if you choose faith to guide you in your beliefs.  I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to the story, but maybe reality could be a blending of both stories, and the faith part is where you might end up believing the story's claim to make you believe in God. I did love Pi's view that all the religions believed in the same God and thus as a spiritually oriented kid, he could easily accept the symbolism and rituals from each faith as being easily interchanged and intertwined in his religious views, much like his two stories about how he survived could be interchanged and intertwined to have some base in reality, on the basis of faith.  Whew, if you haven't read the book and seen the movie, I'm pretty sure right now I sound like I'm spewing a lot of whooey!

I also read "Still Alice".  Fairly predictable and I think it was meant as a positive spin on a really crappy disease.  Only thing is, it seemed more fairy tale to me as it went along, because as the woman progresses with her disease, she is loved and taken care of by her family and it's as if, it is all ok, even if she doesn't really know what is going on anymore.  Reality is a lot worse for some people.  I know of two people who committed suicide when they felt or understood or knew that their minds were going.  Another one I know of became so abusive and violent and hateful, spewing forth such filth and indecent garbage and so mean and abusive to his wife that he had to be put in a home, to save her from becoming injured.  I can't imagine living a life with someone who has been the love of your life and treated you respectfully always who gradually becomes that way.  I can't imagine becoming that kind of person.  I can imagine it is a difficult situation regardless of which side of the glass wall you are on.

I've just finished "Where the Heart Is" by Billie Letts.  I recall years ago hearing a story about a young woman who hides in a Walmart store in Oklahoma and gives birth there. Ironically, until this day, I didn't realize that wasn't an actual article from the news files!  The story was a quick two day read for me and I really enjoyed it a lot because in the mid 70's, I lived in small town Oklahoma and most of the story was so much exactly what it is like there, back then anyway.  I have a friend who moved to Tulsa a couple years ago, who said it is a wonderful place to live and she felt it was much different than her time in OK back in the 70's too.  Of course, I guess the same could be said about pretty much any little old town, considering how much the world has changed in the last 35 years.  When I lived there, the first question asked of someone new to town was possibly, "What's your name", but it was nearly always followed with, "What church do you go to?"  I remember kids trying to "save" me and get me to become "born again". Our town paper, would have a section every Monday, where it showed a head count of how many people went to each church each prior Sunday. 

The characters, gardens, situations, Walmart, tornado, country singing, getting hit by a train all rang true for me. So weird really, so many things in that story could have been taken from parts of my life and people I knew when I was living there.   I worked at a Walmart in Stillwater, OK for a couple years while in college.  I lived in Owasso, OK and experienced a few tornados, people who were babies having babies, abusive, hard drinking men, people fornicating with each other, who shouldn't have been,  and even had a relative who was hit by a train, but luckily survived with all his limbs attached. Even had one lovely neighbor lady who saw Jesus's feet once.  My mom  asked her what Jesus looked like but she didn't know because she was too afraid to look at anything other than his feet.  Yes, Oklahoma was an interesting place to live and find interesting characters to build a story around!  Good on ya, Billi Letts!  I am sure there will be enough in that state alone for her to write a fine number of novels in her lifetime.  Oklahoma is OK after all.