I work in a library, I love to read. I’m surrounded all day by books. I see new ones come in and go out, and have a lot of conversations with colleagues and with customers about their favourites and their latest reads.
But I’m suffering a book drought as parched as a Hawkes Bay wheat field. Let me explain: I read the blog, check out the New Titles, take recommendations from many more learned than I, and every book but one I’ve read or attempted to read this year I’ve given up on.
I’ll tell you about the book I have actually finished, recommended by our blogging guru, robertafsmith. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It was just as she described, a lovely gentle read, which I don’t come across very often, being a fan of bleak in all its forms and I did fall in love with Harold, just a little bit.
But then I moved onto Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I kept hearing his name mentioned and had never read his books, so I gave this a go and at my usual decision point, on page 33 where the library has a label placed. If a story hasn’t grabbed me by page 33, life is too short, so I stop reading. And this fell into that category… maybe fans out there can persuade me to give it another go?
Then there was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This I could see was a wonderfully written book, but it was spoiled for me by the movie curse. The movie, I thought, was wondrous. And when I started to read the book, they were so close in language and the pictures I saw in my mind, I felt a weird mix of deja vu and sadness and I gave up on that too.
The latest, was given up on for pure laziness reasons. I can read big books, I’ve done it before, but I found Capital by John Lanchester at over 600 pages, was just too heavy to read in bed at night. I feel deep shame at being so shallow and pathetic, both in mind and body, but what’s a girl to do?
So, here’s the challenge. Tell me what to read, please! It can’t be too heavy, just had a movie released based on it or have characters I just don’t care about…
Or, tell me to snap out of it and tell me why I should give the above books a go.