Let’s Do Lunch

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<big yawn>  Has it really been so long? Flirting with a blog dedicated to reading and reading alone has kept me occupied for awhile, when I wasn’t spending 30 hours a week learning JavaScript anyway, but I got bored, i.e., I deleted it. It’s no fun to write lit crit on a constant basis. I’d rather just enjoy what I’m reading, and only pick it apart into little bits when I’m in conversation with some other book nerd who loves/hates the book I hate/love.

Here are a few things I’ve done since September 2013, according to my twitter feed (which is far superior to my memory):

  • Road trip to a) Disneyland for a shot of pure blissed-out, kid-again stuff, b) Grand Canyon for stellar (get it) stargazing and camping surrounded by mating elk, c) Vegas up-til-morning gaming debauchery, and d) back home magically in one piece.
  • Continued revision on my novel-in-progress.
  • Ran two races: terrible timing because I quit running in earnest to write term papers for grad school, but a great time because running is fun.
  • Batkid came to our fair city and saved the day!
  • Adopted an orchid for my birthday, which it took me a full three months to kill: a record for me.
  • “Birthday” has officially become my go-to Beatles Karaoke Night song.
  • Got my wisdom teeth removed. Tweet from the third day after the surgery: “I’m tired of pudding.”
  • A person I love and helped take care of as a newborn (my nephew) graduated from high school — Magna Cum Laude! So proud I could burst, it goes without saying.

<dust> <dust> The bricolagerie is back in business!

Discovering Murakami

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I sent this to a friend the other day, someone experienced in the work and worlds of Haruki Murakami who has recommended his books to me a time or two.

I started reading Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World today.

First couple of pages I was thinking, I dunno if I want to keep reading this. By the end of the first chapter I thought, hrm, I’m slightly interested. End of second chapter, I was compelled to continue out of confusion. End of third chapter? Completely, utterly HOOKED.

Line & Sinker.

What I love most about this book is the delicate balance of I have no idea what is going on here, juxtaposed with: ah-ha, I’m starting to see what might be going on here. Some authors try to spring something on you, as if a trick twist you could never have predicted in a million years is some kind of a mark of literary honor, with no reverence for Chekov’s gun. But the gradual revelation of method in what seems like madness is, for a reader, beguiling enough to keep her reading straight through to the end. Like I did.

This book folds and folds on you like a delicate meringue-based batter. It’s thoughtful, hilarious, disaffected, weird, beautiful. And I’m a sucker for a book populated by librarians.