For the last month, I haven’t touched a book other than to look up formulae, quotes or recipes. Well, that’s not completely true, I haven’t touched a really good book in the last month, which may explain my current aversion to them. A neighbor loaned me Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and I figured why the hell not. On guessing the identity of the bad guy as well as the never-literal final thrust of the story halfway through the book, the compulsive in me had to plow through to the final page (also to figure out if I was right). That couldn’t end well.
Symbol wasn’t a total loss. It re-introduced me to Ben Franklin’s Magic Squares and a couple of other cool puzzles. Also makes me want to take a month to visit the Smithsonian again and other buildings in the nation’s capital.
Before that was Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Smart and well-paced for a detective thriller with heaping spoonfuls of social advocacy, but it didn’t propel me into its sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire. Chalk it up to the fact that we are in the throes of the horrifying BP oil spill and Season 1 of Treme and I’m not quite in the mood to read about a woman flashing back to psychological and physical abuse in the Swedish child welfare system, even if she does grow up to kick ass and take goth tattoos.
The Wall Street Journal’s Books’ section agrees with me: “If ever we“ve needed a healthy dose of escapism, this summer is it. We“re stressed about losing our jobs, paying our mortgages, selling our homes.” But even their selections are too shallow or too depressing.
These have been my reading attempts over the last five weeks:
– 15 pages into Kevin Baker’s Dreamland (really hard to keep the cast of 5000 characters introduced in the first 10 pages straight, especially when you’re falling asleep on an airplane)
– 2 pages into Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (I’ve had enough of the government passing bad regulations and not good ones for a while, thanks)
– 20 pages into Denis Leary’s Why We Suck (do I need Leary to tell me?)
– 16 pages into Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire (see earlier analysis)
These four books impede the purchase of Miguel Syjuco“s Ilustrado, Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road, Citrus County by John Brandon, Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Angel’s Game and other recommended books. Who am I kidding? Existing books have never kept me from buying new ones. But, I don’t want to buy them and have them sit there.
Exercise, sleep and making the food, metronome, jewelry and clothing (other than the three t-shirts I altered the other day) I’ve long envisioned also wait in the wings. What’s stopping me? Sleep, or lack thereof, and the crap tv I watch in order to fall asleep but end up watching until late. Ideas?
