Monday, April 11, 2011

Vacation, Reading, Good and Bad

I've never been good at reading on vacation.  I always seem to bring the wrong kind of book.  I don't particularly care for 'throw away' paperbacks and I'm so fussy about reading in comfort (quiet, my favorite chair, ottoman, rum and coke) that I think I'm gonna give up on reading in all further vacations.

Reading on the beach is anathema to me.  There is sun, an ocean, friends, new people to meet, too many drinks (if there is such a thing); reading is not going to happen in that setting for me.  Ever.  Even in less-awesome-than-the-beach locales reading just isn't happening.  Perhaps I'm too much a creature of habit and unable to break my routine.

As I have had a few days off from the other job this month--the technical term is furlough-- I planned on getting some extra reading done.  I don't see much extra in the making.  The Red Tree almost killed me.  Talk about having to power through... If I took this with me on a trip I would not have finished it.  That was last week.  This week I've been getting through The Habitation of the Blessed, which I feel certain will be the best book I read this year.  Even though I'm enjoying this book so much, I feel like I should have finished it by now.  The next time I have time away from work, I'm going to fully enjoy whatever I'm doing and not plan on any reading.

Expect reviews of both The Red Tree and The Habitation of the Blessed shortly.  And as far as good and bad go; these are two books that I would not normally leave comments for.  I don't like being super negative and when I like something as much as I do The Habitation of the Blessed it becomes difficult for me to express anything more than, "This is awesome."  At the least, it should be a good exercise for me.  

Back to normalcy and the everyday rut of my life.  Perhaps now that things have settled I'll still have a chance of doing a lot of reading this month.     

2 comments:

Marion said...

The Red Tree was on many critics' "Best of" lists. I think she is an amazing prose whose work irritates me--but then, I haven't read this. What bugged you about it? Was it the book within the book?

Chad Hull said...

The review will be up tonight; I promise. I hope it explains what irked me about the book.

'I think she is an amazing prose whose work irritates me '

I've read The Red Tree and The Ammonite Violin. Your comment above would speak for how I feel about the author as well.