This is self-torture because I am still days away from the end of my reading deprivation, even then I have three review books on the docket. It will be awhile until I pick up any of these titles… but here are some choices for reading once all that dust settles.
The other day I was thinking about how hard it is for one person to adequately understand another person’s particular existence. This is the kind of exciting thing you think about when you aren’t reading books or watching TV and the enormity of the human experience on this planet is suddenly on your mind much more often. Also, the last book you read before the drought was Frankie Landau-Banks. Anywaaay, that’s what I was thinking about, and then I remembered oh, that’s exactly what Paper Towns is about! I think I’ve only read Paper Towns once, which is unusual for me and a John Green book, so I could go for a quick re-read.
Speaking of quick reads, I have had Beverley Brenna’s Wild Orchid checked out for months now. Wild Orchid is the first book in the series that includes the Printz-honor winning The White Bicycle, and I am one of those people who refuse to betray the sanctity of the series 9 times out of 10. I want to read book three, I must first read books one and two. That’s just the way it works.
Speaking of books I’ve had checked out for months, I am on my last renew with Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility. I could read this one real quick – I started it once and I liked what I read, so I think I could muscle through with the proper motivation!
And the final option… I could read a book about Rome because I checked out like 6 of them and haven’t read a single one yet. I am actually going to be in Rome in 3 months. I will also be married. Equally bizarre situations. I could read a marriage book, yes, but I’ve read books about marriage before. I have not read books about Rome. I could read Rome and a Villa by Eleanor Clark – it is a series of memoir-ish sketches about living in Rome while on a Guggenheim fellowship in 1945. Can you imagine being a woman in 1945 on a Guggenheim fellowship living abroad? I at least want to give this one a taste.