All I ever think about are books books books

So true.

Today when I got to work, a book I’d had on reserve for three weeks (or so) was waiting for me at my desk. I all but threw aside the book I started reading this morning to fill the gaping void left by my want… nay, need to read this other book. I’m not too proud to admit that I spent a goodly portion of my day and all of my lunch hour devouring this book, snatching greedy moments to read a few more pages. When I got home, I dropped my purse and bag and sat down in the first chair I passed to finish reading it [1].

The whole time I was doing this, I felt like a glutton, gobbling up chunks of the story; I realized that I can be a very selfish reader and woe unto s/he who comes between me and a book I’m reading that I really like – my enjoyment of a book comes first and everything else comes a distant second. I will ignore you, along with many other things, to reread clever passages, humourous moments or all the times the protagonist and their One True Love exchange meaningful dialogue. Deep, deep down, I’m a hopeless romantic in a tiny corner of the shriveled appendage that passes for my heart.

Moving on… here’s what I read in April. When I looked back to see what I read before my 9-book marathon, I was surprised that I’d read a few. But not at all surprised that I’d forgotten most of them.

Leslie Marshall, A Girl Could Stand Up (6)
What this book really boiled down to was that families come in all shapes and sizes. No matter how weird your relatives are, it doesn’t stop them from sometimes having a profound effect on our lives, especially if they really care about you, and you care about them. It’s also about how families aren’t always about what we’re born into, they’re sometimes what we make.

Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus! (8)
Colour me surprised – I really, really liked this book about a school shooting and its aftermath. It was funny in a sorrowful way, and also about all the ways hope and faith can save us. I think the part I loved the most were Jason and Heather’s little characters that acted as a creative outlet for them, as well as an emotional outlet for Jason.

Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (6)
Colour me surprised again – I didn’t really enjoy this book. It’s one of his earlier ones, and is focused more on the hocus-pocus than it is on the metaphor.

Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia (3)
Oh, I wanted to like this book. It seemed sort of silly and had the potential to be a lightweight sort of read, but then it started taking itself seriously, and then the shooting started and nothing made sense anymore. Also, I wasn’t sure what political lesson I was supposed to take away from it, because there was a Political Lesson You Must Learn About The Middle East and it wasn’t all that clear. [2]

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (2)
When I told my friend Lise what I was reading for book club, she confessed that she’d read this one back-to-back with Angela’s Ashes last year [3]. Fortunately, I only had to read half of that double-header – I KNOW it’s representative of a Certain Place and a Certain Time. I KNOW that various characters were just being realistic and not really cruel. I KNOW that the prejudices were a product of the time and oh, isn’t it dandy that we live in such enlightened times? But it doesn’t change the fact I thought it was unrelentingly depressing and negative – it’s not enough that this girl grows up in poverty and that her mother is a misogynist, it’s also that any time anyone thinks about doing something kind for them they immediately start second-guessing themselves and change their minds (“kindness will make them weak!”) This is my mother’s favourite book, and my reaction is the same as when we had to read Wuthering Heights for a book club many years ago [3.5] – really? No, REALLY?

Suzanne Brockmann, The Troubleshooters Inc. series (9)
‘Way back in December, one day while I was covering the circ desk in my department, someone came up and dropped a couple of talking books on MP3 at the counter and said she’d be right back. I picked up the case for the one on top, and thought, “Oh, it’s part of a series about Navy SEALs and other ass-kicking types, and this is the ‘Christmas’ story [4]. How twee.” Flipping it over, I started reading the back, which starts out with your usual “Jules and Robin are getting married, and then Jules has to go kick someone’s ass overseas, blah blah blah…” and as I was about to put it back I caught the phrase “their mutual ex-boyfriend.”

WAIT, WHAT? Let me see if I understand this correctly: someone has written a series about a group of people who regularly kick terrorist ass, break up spy rings and rescue hostages, and one of them is gay? And not the heroine’s best friend who simpers and stereotypes his way through the book? And can regularly out-think and out-kick the hetro guys? AND is getting married to another guy? Wow. Where do I start reading? [5]

It took me a while to get around to it because, to be honest, not only did I forget the author’s name, I also forgot the name of the book. DUH. Then about a month ago, it passed over the counter again, and it triggered an “oh yeah!” and I found out that my library has all but one of the books in the series. In what can only be described as something akin to what alcoholics experience when they binge drink and lose chunks of time to blackouts, I read nine of the books in the series in two weeks, two more in the following week, and the last one I finished tonight (the 12th book in the series).

I can’t even begin to figure out how I got hooked on them in the first place. Normally, my Rational Self starts reading something like this, and starts huffing about how it’s so unrealistic and implausible, and how she can’t suspend my disbelief long enough to finish the book, let alone the first ten pages. Sometimes, though, my Irrational Self – the hopeless romantic who believes that maybe somewhere out there things like this really could happen – starts reading over Rational Self’s shoulder and sees something she likes. In this case, it appears as if my Irrational Self not only took over to finish reading all the books in the series, it actually beat up my Rational Self and locked her in the bathroom while doing so.

Sometimes, there is no other way to explain why or how, other than to say I just dug it.

[1] To be fair, it’s not a long book. Under 300 pages and hardcover, which = less than 3 hours to read for me.
[2] The note I made for myself reads “eye-rollingly annoying.”
[3] I can’t be certain, but I think this qualifies her for a free pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a bottle of tequila because there isn’t a more depressing combo out there.
[3.5] Being far younger than everyone else (like, by 30 years), all the other people in the group had read it as a great romantic novel. I read it as some creepy, abusive stalker who was obsessed with some flaky twit, and failed to see the romance. What can I say – sometimes I’m a little cynical.
[4] I also made a vague note to check and see if we had the rest of the series on any audio-book format, and it turns out we don’t. Still don’t, for that matter, because I haven’t had a lot of time to look.
[5] The first person to suggest “at the beginning” wins nothing.