How about a date with a good book?

Disclaimer: this post is way, way off the purported topic of this blog. But it's my blog and I'll do what I want. 

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In an effort to keep me distracted from myself this week, I've been reading a lot. At the moment I am reading/listening to three books that I am super into. It's been a long time since I was reading ONE book that I really liked, so reading three at once feels miraculous somehow, like being pushed into a candy store as a kid with a hundred dollar bill and told to go wild. The books are totally different, too. One is The Idiot, by Dostoyevsky, which I am loving because (a) I love Russian literature, and (b) it is SUCH A DRAMA. I mean, you won't believe what Natasya whatsherface did at the end of part 1! Everyone was so vexed! I'm shocked that Days of our Lives or As the World Turns or whatever is still on TV hasn't borrowed liberally from the plot. (Actually, they may have. I would have no way of knowing.) Although I'm only a third of the way through the book at this point, I feel confident in saying that it is quite good. And it's perfect for distracting me just enough when I'm trying to fall asleep, even though I sometimes have to read the same page three nights in a row before I remember what happened. I'm so happy the book is epically long...I am already dreading being finished. What will happen to the prince next? I must find out!

The second book I'm reading is I guess called Wool? That was the name of the short story that sucked me in, anyway. [Incidentally, said short story is free for Kindle right now and I highly recommend downloading it (and reading it, obvi).] I thought Wool was a really, really good story...it didn't take very long to read, but it packed a lot in and the end was really haunting. I liked it so much, in fact, that upon finishing I immediately downloaded the Wool omnibus edition, which is the novel-length sequel to the short story, and I am plowing through that as fast as I can. Reading it has even taken the place of my TV vegging-out after work, which, if you know me, means I must be quite into it. I am particularly enjoying this book because it serves well to occupy my imagination during the day, and anyway, there's almost nothing I like more than a good character-driven dystopia*...especially one that paints a world complicated enough that you don't know who to root for. Ack, even typing this paragraph makes me want to quit and go back to reading. I'd better hurry up and finish with whatever it is I'm talking about.

The last book I'm reading is titled 14, and in the interest of full disclosure I'm not actually reading it but rather listening to it. However, since listening to a book takes me much longer than actually reading it, I count it as a read (and in any case, does it really matter how the words get into my brain?). I suspect that this book will lose its lustre for me after the central mystery is resolved, as often happens for me with books like this, but before that happens I'm quite enjoying the way the story is playing out. As a bonus, the book takes place in Los Angeles, and I like being able to picture the streets and parts of town that it talks about. So I guess that's one good thing about the five years I spent in LA: I can accurately picture books that are set there. That's...something.

And now, I find myself running out of things to say. There's no real purpose for this post except to get rid of some nervous energy I have pent up...there are so many ideas swirling in my head from these books, and I don't really have anyone to talk to about them. Though it's always good to have an excuse to feature some awesome WPA artwork. Why doesn't the government still pay people to make propaganda for books? That's probably what's wrong with the youth these days.

*Fun fact: Blogger spellcheck does not recognize "dystopia" as a real word. It suggests I might actually mean "topiary." Really?