Beach Reads
I finished Boomsday while I was still on Maui. It was fast and fun and full of interesting aspects of how politics, marketing, PR and truth sort of fit together in Washington DC and the country. It's a novel, but it could so easily be reality. The best part was that I jumped into a novel and really enjoyed being swept away by the story and characters. I haven't read a novel in a while and it's good to be back into them.
When I got home, I was ready for another novel and my husband suggested I read the book he is reading for research:
I wasn't sure at first, but then read a few pages and was hooked. It turned into a summer beach read, one of those long, pulpy paperback novels full of historic details and lots of characters with which to show off all the research that had been done. I enjoyed it until about the last 150 pages (it was 700 pages long). I'm a fast reader so it only took me a week or so to finish the book. But I found that after about half way I was ready for it to be done, but still wanted to know what happened. So I read faster to get to the end and didn't enjoy it as much. I love reading long books, don't get me wrong. But there something about the Beach Read that is more about enjoying the fact that there is time to spend reading, not as much about the book itself.
Now I'm reading:
It is along the lines of The Tipping Point and Blink and Freakonomics. I went to the bookstore yesterday (Danger! Danger!) and bought books (!) I went to buy gifts and did indeed buy 1 birthday gift, 1 thank you gift and 1 father's day gift. I also bought two books for myself. One was the above book and the other was A Good Walk Spoiled by John Feinstein. I have never played golf (I'm guessing the Tiger Woods PGA Tour game on the Wii doesn't count...) but always find the stories fascinating -- all good sports stories are fun to read. And I love listening to John Feinstein on NPR. I miss his back and forth with Bob Edwards.
(Still not clear why NPR took him off mornings....idiots.....but you can hear him now on XM Public Radio. I can't, but maybe you can.)
But I must continue with reading novels. I can't let myself get stuck in non-fiction. Luckily, my next beach read will be here soon. Though it doesn't quite fit what I described above as I savor each page when the books come out. I guess I better get cracking on reading the previous book so I remember where we were!
I wasn't sure at first, but then read a few pages and was hooked. It turned into a summer beach read, one of those long, pulpy paperback novels full of historic details and lots of characters with which to show off all the research that had been done. I enjoyed it until about the last 150 pages (it was 700 pages long). I'm a fast reader so it only took me a week or so to finish the book. But I found that after about half way I was ready for it to be done, but still wanted to know what happened. So I read faster to get to the end and didn't enjoy it as much. I love reading long books, don't get me wrong. But there something about the Beach Read that is more about enjoying the fact that there is time to spend reading, not as much about the book itself.
Now I'm reading:
It is along the lines of The Tipping Point and Blink and Freakonomics. I went to the bookstore yesterday (Danger! Danger!) and bought books (!) I went to buy gifts and did indeed buy 1 birthday gift, 1 thank you gift and 1 father's day gift. I also bought two books for myself. One was the above book and the other was A Good Walk Spoiled by John Feinstein. I have never played golf (I'm guessing the Tiger Woods PGA Tour game on the Wii doesn't count...) but always find the stories fascinating -- all good sports stories are fun to read. And I love listening to John Feinstein on NPR. I miss his back and forth with Bob Edwards.
(Still not clear why NPR took him off mornings....idiots.....but you can hear him now on XM Public Radio. I can't, but maybe you can.)
But I must continue with reading novels. I can't let myself get stuck in non-fiction. Luckily, my next beach read will be here soon. Though it doesn't quite fit what I described above as I savor each page when the books come out. I guess I better get cracking on reading the previous book so I remember where we were!
posted by Julia | 5/29/2007 06:32:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home