Rocking Out the Reading

If you pay the slightest bit of attention to my sidebar, you may have noticed that books under Now Reading tend to stay there a long, long, really long time. But my statistical average of 10.3 months to read a 326 page book has now been skewed, thanks to one freakishly long book read at a fever pitch.

I finally finished up The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern, and this is a book I enjoyed and recommend, to anyone open to Yiddish and a bit of magical realism. That one took me quite a long while, reading it between appointments and in hospital waiting areas.

From there I opted for an easy read that I would be willing to donate to the local library afterward. Tell Me Where it Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon by Nick Trout. Despite its 304 pages, I polished this baby off in under a week. The book reads like a fresh bag of potato chips: it’s seductive to reach for one more, then another, page. If I have any disappointment at all is that I suspect Dr. Trout is not a cat person. The few cats that are mentioned are always being cared for by some other doctor in the past or present.

The next book was a whopping 533 pages that I read in a single day. I know! Okay. In the interest of honesty and fair play, it was a The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, and the book had almost more illustrations than words. Still, it was highly enjoyable, pouring through a hefty tome felt like a victory, and I am glad so glad that I’ve read the book before I see the movie.

Now I’m dipping my toe into 1Q84, a book that you’ll probably still see in my sidebar in early 2013 (and possibly 2014) as it has 944 pages and zero illustrations that I’ve run across thus far. It’s a parallel universe story set in Tokyo in the year 1984, which anyone around my age will recognize as the title of a pivotal George Orwell novel. I’m less than a dozen pages into it, but I feel the suction pull of a really great novel.

In other entertainment news, we recently finished season 1 of Boardwalk Empire set in 1920 New Jersey at the beginning of Prohibition. And now we’re watching season 2 of Downton Abbey set in a highbrow English manor in 1918. So close in time, yet so different in culture, comparing the two series is an interesting exercise. Old money vs. new, class differences, world view, technological advances... Lady Grantham struggles to use the manor’s new phone as she places long-distance calls to see to the care of her relatives and servants injured on the battlefield. Two years later, a much lower-class Margaret is having the same difficulty when her lover gives her a phone so they can stay in contact. I can’t wait until the next season (please, please) is released of both.