Books! They are everywhere. Slewed across my bed; piled high against my walls; tangled into my carpet; forming small islands and miniature skyscrapers, reaching higher and wider into the infinities of my living space and my imagination. This is my way of complaining that I own way too many books. It took five boxes and two bags to move them all. They now sit brashly around my room in messy stacks, ostracized without a bookshelf. Funny though, I find I’m making it through each new read more rapidly, what with the break from school and the urge to organize this disorganized soup of books. It’s like I’m slooooowly building a large tower of Lego’s in the corner of my room; I read a book and then stick it appropriately where it fits on the stack. One day, I plan to have a fort, no better yet a castle made of books.
Anyway, I digress. I’m not much one for writing book reviews, but my two recent novels (plus the end of a third) reminded me why I read. They’re not necessarily page turners, and they certainly aren’t very hefty (both weigh in under 200 pages, except for the third), but what some may say they lack in action, adventure, and attention, they make-up for in an effortlessness to be relate-able and yet completely foreign. If these two concepts seem contradictory, well they are. However…I am consistently and infallibly bemused and therefore captivated by this combination. Okay, so these past two and a halve-ish books have reminded me that I adore reading because it’s like being inside someone else's head, seeing from eyes you’d never get to see from if you limited yourself to just your own perspective. OHHHH. MAAAAN. This carries over into some many faucets of life and living and experiencing reality. Take for example Prisig’s explanation of reality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (the third book I read). Prisig explains that we are always living in the past and we never really exist in reality, unless you are suuuuper good at being aware of things before you intellectualize them and imprint them as memories; before your brain filters out the Reality (capital R, if it even exists) and turns it into your own personalized version of reality (little case r). Reading is a glimpse into other individuals’ little r realities. If you, yourself, get a change to read either of these books (The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Apathy and Other Small Victories- which Nick gave me for Christmas) I highly recommend them. The first is about a schizophrenic high school-er in the early 1990’s, whose way of thinking is uncanny and deeply familiar. I’m not saying I’m schizophrenic, but the main character get’s these bouts of deep depression that are brought on by an over abundance of thought, and well let’s just say, I’ve been there, done that. And as for the second book, I’m still reading it. But so far I’ve never found another book that parallels my sense of humor quite as well as this Portland author’s quirky commentary. Perhaps my favorite line is, “this”
p.s. Julie and I were talking about remembering the book that got us into reading. I have two. James and the Giant Peach, as read by my step-dad Dave when I was in the third grade. And Regarding the Fountain, perhaps the best epistolary novel ever written for children!
damn, I loved this book. I think it was the first chapter book I ever read twice too!
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