Tag Archives: reading

Giving thanks — a bookish perspective

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In another hour, I’ll head to the kitchen to start working on my contributions to the holiday meal. Meanwhile, my family and I are relaxing around the house. My son is playing video games, still in his pajamas. My husband and I just got home from a walk at the beach, where we enjoyed fresh breezes and blue skies. Before long, we’ll have to start the hustle and bustle of getting dressed and hitting the road for our Thanksgiving celebration with friends. But meanwhile, it feels a bit like I’ve managed to hit the pause button of life for just a few minutes.

In this brief lull on my Thanksgiving Day, I want to take a moment to reflect on all the small joys of life as a reader and take stock of what’s made me happy and grateful this year.

I AM THANKFUL that my family, despite their teasing and occasional complaints, understands that books matter to me and respect my need to carve out some quiet reading time every day.

I AM THANKFUL to all the wonderful people who have stopped by my blog since its birth a few months ago. Your comments and support have meant so much to me!

I AM THANKFUL to the members of my online book circles for turning me on to reading choices I might not have encountered on my own. Thank you, Goodreads friends, Outlander Book Club, Wishlist Wednesday bloggers, and more!

I AM THANKFUL to the authors of my favorite books published in 2012, including Christopher Moore, Deborah Harkness, John Green, and Libba Bray.

I AM THANKFUL to the authors who take the time to respond to questions and interact with their readers. It can’t be easy, but your graciousness is so appreciated! Special thanks to Nicole Peeler, Gail Carriger, and Lev AC Rosen, who are not only terrific writers but also just plain old good people.

I AM THANKFUL to Mary Doria Russell, who was kind enough to invite me to an appearance she did at a local high school. What a lovely, friendly, funny, and talented woman she is!

I AM THANKFUL to Diana Gabaldon for creating the much beloved Outlander series and all of its associated offshoots, and for teasing her readers with her Daily Lines on Facebook.

I AM THANKFUL to the San Francisco Public Library — and really, public libraries everywhere! — for long hours, fantastic resources, and outstanding service to the community. Thank you for letting me take out limitless books, request whatever I want, and for having so many good selections for my child!

I AM THANKFUL to have so many choices when it comes to reading. I love being able to find excellent works of fiction, not only on the bestseller lists, but also in children’s books, young adult novels, and graphic novels.

I AM THANKFUL to have the ability to walk away from books that aren’t working for me. It took me years to master the guilt of leaving a book unfinished! But I’ve gotten wiser, and now fully embrace the mantra that “life’s too short to read bad books”.

I AM THANKFUL that my daughter loves to talk books with me, and that my son — while still the most reluctant of readers — does love to listen to a good story.

I AM THANKFUL for my new bookshelves, the space to put them in, and the books, old and new, that fill them up.

I AM THANKFUL to all the writers, everywhere, who work so hard to share their creativity with all of us avid readers!

With an endless amount of books to read, I will never be bored, I will continue to learn, I will explore lands and times beyond my physical reach. And for all this and more, I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

The final read-aloud, part deux

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Last week, I published a blog post called “The Final Read-Aloud” about my experiences reading with my 10-year-old son and dreading the day that he decides he’s too old to be read to. My beautiful, talented, and apparently neglected-feeling daughter, age 22, pointed out that my experiences with her were quite different. In the interest of family peace, as well as presenting another view of the end of reading aloud, I thought I’d add an overview of my daughter’s evolution as a reader as well.

Let me start by saying that my husband makes fun of me whenever I bemoan the difficulty of parenting a rowdy, active boy — because he thinks that I expected this one to turn out to be another perfect little angel like his sister, and as it turns out, that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong, I love ALL my children. But you know the children’s book I Love You The Purplest? That really sums up a parent’s life in a nutshell.

My daughter  was easy from day one. I could and did take her anywhere with me and she got along just fine, whether it was lunch with girlfriends, shopping expeditions, or museum outings. We hit the theaters and movies, did crafts, enjoyed dancing around the house, or just sitting and watching “The Little Mermaid” for the thousandth time. And, like me, my little angel was a reader from the get-go.

We read together every night before bed, sometimes piles of books, and she never got tired of it. When she started elementary school, she took to early phonics and reading exercises like a champ. By second grade, although we were still reading together every night, she discovered the joys of reading on her own. Her first chapter books were the junior versions of Ann M. Martin’s Babysitters Club series — The Babysitters’ Little Sister books. These were perfect for her — not too difficult, and centered around a 2nd-grade girl and her friends. After she got tired of that bunch, she graduated into the bigger kid stories in The Babysitters Club, and then on into the big, wide world of reading, no mom filters required.

BUT, we hung in there and continued reading together as well. Our read-alouds gave us the opportunity to explore books together, and gave her the chance to enjoy books that she probably would have found too difficult on her own at that point, such as The Golden Compass (those first chapters are so dense, they’re practically impenetrable). So why did we stop reading aloud together? I blame Harry Potter.

We read the first three Harry Potter books together. She’s of the lucky generation that grew up with Harry Potter, always about the same age as Harry as he grew up from book to book. On book 3, I pretty much lost my voice by the end, as we’d gotten to the really good parts and she simply would not allow me to stop reading. What could I do? I was as hooked as she was, so we pressed on.

In the year 2000, when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published, my lovely girl was 10 years old. We brought the book home, read a single chapter together, and boom! That’s when it happened. She decided that it was just too slow, all this reading aloud business, took the book off on her own, and plowed right through it. See ya, mom! Of course, she loved it, and I loved the book too. We just loved it separately, that’s all.

Goblet of Fire wasn’t necessarily a cold-turkey stop to reading aloud together, but it certainly marked the beginning of the end. That experience showed her, beyond a doubt, that she was a full-fledged independent reader who could handle longer, more complex stories on her own.

It didn’t feel like a sad ending of a chapter with her, probably because she has remained a devoted, avid reader all her life. Like me, she gets overly involved in her books, falls in love with the fictional worlds she visits, becomes highly invested in the characters, and likes to be surrounded by the books she loves wherever she goes. We’ve spent our whole lives together talking about books, trading books, and recommending books, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop.

Which brings me back to my son (sorry, daughter sweetie, I know this was supposed to be all about you…). I think the reason that I dread the end of our reading-aloud times is that I don’t feel confident that he’ll end up a reader. Left to his own devices so far, books are the things that he picks up when he’s forced to. I can count on one, maybe two hands, the times he’s voluntarily chosen to spend time reading. I’m afraid that once he no longer wants to be read to, he’ll fall into a book-less void.

I’m not giving up. I know I still have a job to do to get him to the point where reading is fun and exciting, and not just a chore. We’re not there yet. But we’ll get there, I hope. Onward!

A bookish sort of romance

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When people ask me how I met my husband, I usually just shrug my shoulders, say “mutual friends”, and leave it at that. I never really thought there was much of a story there… until my online book group told me otherwise. That group of avid readers convinced me that, for a booklover, this is a good love story indeed.

So… About 20 years ago, I moved to San Francisco, newly divorced and full-time single mother. I settled in, got a job, made some friends, and occasionally indulged myself by hiring a babysitter and going out folkdancing. (Woo hoo, wild times, right?)

I met a group of people through dancing that I could share rides with, got to know some of them, and enjoyed their company. One of this group was my husband-to-be (HTB). HTB was quite a bit older than I was, also recently divorced, father of two, nice looking, and a pretty funny guy. That was my entire impression of him. I didn’t know him as well as some of the others in the group, but my overall thought was that he liked to joke around, was always laughing, had a nice smile, and seemed like a decent person.

Then, one fateful night, we both got a ride from a friend and ended up sitting together in the backseat for the 45-minute drive home. We made small talk for a while, and somehow the conversation wound around to books. HTB did not grow up in the US. He learned English as an adult and speaks it very well, but it’s certainly not his native language. I had already learned from him that he grew up in a poor, religious household and did not get very far with his formal education, being expected to pursue a trade by his mid-teens. During our car ride, HTB started telling me about finding refuge in books during his teen years and into early adulthood, journeying to other worlds and cultures through his reading, and finding fulfillment intellectually in a way that he’d been denied by lack of schooling.

Wow. To think that this nice, light-hearted guy was a booklover like me! True, our paths to reading were very, very different, but there we were, chatting in a car about the books that had had an impact on our lives. He mentioned several books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that he had loved, and then he began telling me about one book in particular that had had a huge impact on him. It was, he said, a series of letters from a young man to his mother. The young man had left his home country to seek a life elsewhere, and through his letters, we see his experiences adjusting to his new life and culture. HTB said he’d found the book incredibly moving and interesting — but unfortunately, he wasn’t sure about the title. He’d read the book in his native language, not in English, but even then, it was a translation from the original. The title was something like… Letters to China? Letters to Taiwan? Something with letters. That’s all he remembered.

That car ride changed my life. My eyes were opened to a whole different side of HTB, and from that day onward, we began to talk more, hang out, spend time together, and ultimately… well, this is a love story, after all! We started dating seriously within a month or so, and never looked back. This year marks 19 years of our relationship, 14 years since we tied the knot and made it official. We’ve bought a home, combined our families, and added another child of our own.

But you know, I never really forgot about that car ride and the conversation. I’d tried to look up the book he’d mentioned soon afterward, but didn’t have enough information to go on and never ended up figuring out which book it was.

And then — last year — I attended my favorite bookish event, the Big Book Sale sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. The Big Book Sale is an annual sale of used books that raises money for the library, and is just heaven on earth for book folks. (See my recap of this year’s event here). While browsing the fiction tables and filling up my cart with all sorts of goodies, a certain book cover caught my eye. It was this:

I knew as soon as I saw that this was the long-lost book that HTB had told me about almost twenty years earlier! Letters From Thailand, written by an author named Botan, translated into English from the original Thai by Susan Kepner. Needless to say, I bought it (after jumping up and down a few times).

When I got home that night, I practically bounced all the way down the hall to find my husband and proudly held up the book, shouting something unintelligible along the lines of “LOOK! IT’S THE BOOK!” Once he got over thinking that I was a lunatic, dear HTB did in fact confirm that I’d found the book that he’d loved so many years ago.

So there we are. In a certain way, this is the book that brought my husband and me together and helped us fall in love. The book itself? I read it and enjoyed it, although it wasn’t as life-changing for me at this stage in my life as it was for HTB so many years ago, as an under-educated young man trying to find his way and looking for more.

Romantic? Well, as a booklover, I’d say our is definitely a tale of epic romance!

And, in fact, although I am by far the book fanatic in our household, we do share a love of reading to this day, and our lives continue to be enriched by the books we share, discuss, and even argue about.

Is there such a thing as too much reading?

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According to Goodreads, I’ve read 140 books thus far in 2012 — although to look at the stacks, piles, and bags of unread books sitting around my house, you might reasonably assume that I’ve done nothing all year but twiddle my thumbs. Occasionally, I feel like this:

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Side note: If you Google “drowning in books”, you get a few images like the one above, and then lots and lots of references to books in which there is a drowning. Sometimes, I feel like Google just doesn’t get me.

So returning to my 140 books… let’s bear in mind that you might not consider all of these “real” books. I upped my goal for the year pretty drastically once I realized how many graphic novels I’ve been consuming. So far in 2012, I’ve read all of Buffy season 8, all of the Fables volumes to date plus some of the one-offs, the Jack of Fables series, some of the Locke & Key series, and a bunch of stand-alones. Roughly put, I’d say about 40 – 50 total. Now subtract from my total the kids’ books that I’ve read aloud to my son, and I’d put my “real” total somewhere around 70 or 80.

Why ask if it’s possible to read too much? Several reasons. First and foremost, I wonder if it’s possible to retain that much material, when there’s so much new data entering my reading brain on a daily basis. The answer, I think, is probably not. Sure, I could give you a description a sentence or two in length about just about anything I’ve read in the last few years. But ask me about plot details, chronology, character names, or other nuances, and I’ll probably draw a blank. This actually comes up quite a bit in my house. My husband will end up reading a book that I read six months or a year earlier and will expect me to be able to discuss details with him. When I give him a vacant stare or shrug my shoulders, he’ll usually respond with a snide (but deep down, kind of loving, I’m sure) comment about me losing my memory faster than he is. (Only funny if you’re aware of the fact that he’s 20 years older than I am. Sorry, off-topic and a bit TMI). What I keep reminding dear husband is that in the six months or year since I read the book, I’VE READ 50 MORE BOOKS! That’s hundreds of characters, plot points, funny quotes, and unusual locations to keep track of!

This probably has a lot to do with my reluctance to get involved in series or trilogies, especially if they’re currently unfinished. I loved reading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, which I picked up after the sixth and final book was published and read straight through, beginning to end. Likewise, with A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, I read books 1 – 5 pretty much without stopping. That’s the way to do it! No lapses, no time in between books for facts and figures to be overwritten by extraneous information from bunches of other books! When I read a book, no matter how great, and then have to wait a year or more for the sequel, chances are I won’t remember it as well as I’d like, in which case I can either a) re-read the first book (as I did with A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night this past summer), b) wing it and figure enough will come back to me as I read the new book (which tends to be my approach with certain ongoing series like the Sookie Stackhouse books or the Dresden Files, or c) realize that the details aren’t sharp enough for me to truly care what happens next, shrug my shoulders, and decide to skip it (as was the case for me with the sequels to The Strain — that book scared the bejesus out of me, but by the time book two rolled around, I was over it and didn’t bother reading any further).

My second reason for asking if it’s possible to read too much? Well, I suppose it’s just a “stop and smell the roses” sort of thing. Am I reading so much, so fast, trying to get through so many books, old and new, that I rush instead of savoring? Am I really tasting each bite before I swallow? (Is that kind of a gross metaphor?) Perhaps I should take more time, read more carefully, wallow in the sensations, admire the deft turns of phrase. I think I enjoy the books I read. I think I get quite a lot out of my process of reading. I can’t really imagine slowing down. But I do wonder if I’m denying myself the pleasure of a slow read in favor of reading everything in sight. We shouldn’t gobble our food; is it a good idea to gobble up our books?

The final reason for my question gets back to Goodreads and all the various reading challenges that seem to have proliferated in recent years. In this age of reading as social media event, has reading become a competitive sport? Read a title for each letter of the alphabet, read an author for every letter, read every book on a Great Books list… the number and variety of challenges out there in the blogosphere are seemingly infinite. When did we start worrying so much about meeting goals? Is this a form of peer pressure? Keeping up with the Joneses? In one of my online book groups, there was a debate about whether certain types of reading “counted” toward an annual total. Counted as what? Real books? If I can hold it in my hands and turn the pages, it feels pretty real to me (and okay, yes, I acknowledge that e-books are real too; not completely dissing technology over here). But isn’t it a bit weird to stop and think about goals and totals before deciding to read a book? If I want to re-read a 1,000 page book, shouldn’t I just go ahead and do it, without worrying about scores or keeping up? Granted, this is partially just my own dormant competitive streak coming to the surface — I’ve never been the slightest bit athletic, never felt compelled to run races or set swimming records, but reading is something I’m actually good at! Can I get a gold medal in fiction reading? Please?

So here I am again, back where I started, wondering if I do, in fact, read too much for my own good. I don’t have any answers. I know that reading brings me joy and satisfies my intellect, emotions, and curiosity in ways that nothing else does. But would I enjoy more if I read less? I’m not sure that I actually want to find out.

Sunday morning musings

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Sunday mornings are a special time, a weekly reprieve from plans and commitments, the one time each week when everyone at my house seems to just go with the flow and acknowledge that we have a tiny window of down-time. I’m typically the last to rise, which is only fair, since I’m up and at ’em before everyone else each day during the school and work week.

We float on our own paths toward the kitchen. My son ensconces himself on the couch with the TV on. My husband makes a yummy hot breakfast for the kiddo (today’s feast included french toast and turkey bacon). Husband brews himself a small pot of decaf; I show up afterward and make a big pot of the fully charged stuff.

And then we divvy up the paper. We’re modern creatures and enjoy our technology like good consumers, but we’ve stubbornly clung to our morning delivery of the local newspaper, hot off the press and printed on actual paper (which we diligently recycle after reading). There’s nothing like a cup of coffee and a big fat newspaper on a Sunday morning.

No conflicts in our house — we each grab our favorite sections of the paper, no need to fight or compete. The kid takes the comics, of course, not realizing that he’s lucky that his older siblings no longer live in our house, thereby avoiding the comics wars that used to plague us when we had a house full of kids. Hubby takes the front page — he’s a serious follower of politics and world news — and then moves on to sports, which is the green section in our paper.

Me? No surprise there. Straight to the book review section. I’m happiest when it’s full of fiction reviews, but I tend to read it all. I even take notes occasionally — books to read immediately, books to remember a year or so from now when they’re released in paperback, books to recommend to my daughter. This morning, my smartphone happened to be sitting right next to me, so without delay I navigated to the public library website and put in a request for a title that caught my eye. (I’m request #77 of 77, as it turns out — we’ll see if I still have any interest by the time it becomes available).

I love to read the “Grabbers” feature –“a selection of first sentences from new books” — you never know what will be there, but they’re always fun. I check out the literary guide to see which authors will be speaking locally this week.

And on the last page, I pore through the bestsellers list. I can’t help feeling a little glimmer of civic pride, product of my previously confessed book snobbery, when I compare the lists. Each week, the paper includes both local bestsellers, based on data collected from sales from local independent booksellers, and national bestsellers, based on “computer-processed reports from bookstores and wholesalers throughout the United States”. Here’s what I learned this week:

Both locally and national, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is #1 (and I’m request #300-something at the library — it’ll be a looooong wait for this one). From there, the lists diverge. Locally, bestsellers include A Hologram For The King by Dave Eggers, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, and The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. There’s not a title listed that makes you think “supermarket shelf” or “airport rack”. (I told you already, I am a book snob.) Looking at the national list, I see Debby Macomber, Emily Giffin, Dean Koontz, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, and Danielle Steel. Clearly, lots of people enjoy these authors, but mass-market bestsellers do not equate with works of literature.

My to-read list now a few titles longer, I’m ready to move on to the news sections, business, travel, the arts, and yes, the comics. Sunday morning ritual completed once more, it’s time to face the day, plan our plans, and get out of the house. Maybe we’ll even manage to find sunshine within driving distance of home.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone, wherever it may take you. And read some good stuff along the way.

Genre confusion

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It’s finally happened — Facebook is “timelining” me. (Yes, I just used timeline as a verb. I expect a bolt of lightning any minute now.)

One interesting side effect is the random voyage through my personal history that it’s providing. Movies, TV shows, odd things I said that I’m sure I thought were quite witty at the time… it’s all there. A quick scan through my recent Facebook past revealed this forgotten nugget, dated September 16, 2010:

Dawning realization that the book I’m reading may in fact be a romance novel. Bodices have been ripped.

Any idea what I’m talking about? Only one of my all time favorite novels, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon! Of course, at the time, I didn’t yet realize how very much in love I’d fall with this series (and with the main character, Jamie Fraser, but that’s a different topic).

I can be forgiven for my genre confusion, having just read this passage:

Randall slowly drew the knife in a semicircle under one breast. The homespun came free and fell away with a flutter of white chemise, and my breast sprang out. Randall seemed to have been holding his breath; he exhaled slowly now, his eyes fixed on mine.

Followed on the next page by – ta-dum – our hero’s arrival:

“I’ll thank ye,” said a cool, level voice, “to take your hands off my wife.”

By the end of the book, I was hooked, so much so that by October 16, 2010, my status update read:

Have finished four books of a seven-book (so far) series in the past month. Page count: 3926 read, 3740 to go.

What can I say — other than, I’m glad I stuck with it! Despite the ripped bodice and the occasional heaving breast, what I found myself reading was not a romance novel, but a remarkable piece of historical fiction that includes a lovely romance, as well as a crash course in the history of the Jacobite rebellion, battlefield medicine, Scottish culture, and speculative time travel.

So what shelf does Outlander belong on? According to the author (on her website, here):

In essence, these novels are Big, Fat, Historical Fiction, ala James Clavell and James Michener.  However, owing to the fact that I wrote the first book for practice, didn’t intend to show it to anyone, and therefore saw no reason to limit myself, they  include…

history, warfare, medicine, sex, violence, spirituality, honor, betrayal, vengeance, hope and despair, relationships,
the building and destruction of families and societies, time travel, moral ambiguity, swords, herbs, horses,
gambling (with cards, dice, and lives), voyages of daring, journeys of both body and soul…

you know, the usual stuff of literature.

Thanks, Diana G., that clears that up!

So, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever started a book expecting one thing, and found yourself someplace completely different? And if so, were you glad for the detour?

I know I originally picked up my battered, used edition of Outlander because I remembered seeing the title listed in reference to time travel. I’m sure, though, that if the original context had been about romance, I probably never would have thought to give it a try.

So, here’s to trying new genres! Stepping out of our reading comfort zones! Crossing the book store aisles and browsing a new shelf! You just never know where your next new favorite might be lurking.

And thank you, Facebook, for this strange trip down my book-addicted memory lane.

Read a book. All the cool people are doing it.

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Taking a brief pause to appreciate TV characters who read… for no real reason except that it gives me a good excuse to Google stuff. Without further ado:

Damon Salvatore thinks sparkly vampires are stupid.

Sawyer rockin’ the reading glasses.

Don Draper is a very serious reader.

Good slayers always do their homework first. But where are the Scoobies?

Good slayers always do their homework first. But where are the Scoobies?

No, the other Scoobies!

Joey found Little Women kinda scary.

Gemma hitting the medical texts. Career change?

Trying to read here, Varys.

Never too old for a bedtime story.

Updated 8/24/2012 to add:

Piney reading a one-of-a-kind Stephen King novel. That’s “Cycle Zombies”, and it exists only in TV land.

That’s all I’ve got! If you come up with any other good ones, please share.

11/5/2012: Updated to add this additional cute photo:

Some scary things happen in “The Angels Take Manhattan” episode of Doctor Who, but this reading-friendly picnic scene is just adorable.

This may get a bit graphic

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I was shocked – SHOCKED, I tell you – to discover that I’ve read 25 graphic novels thus far in 2012.

This astonishing turn of events was driven home to me the other day during family reading time, a new tradition recently instituted in my house solely for the purpose of getting my 9-year-old to read. Whether this will actually be successful remains to be seen. However, I digress. During family reading time, the kiddo and I plop ourselves on the couch with our books for a mandatory half hour or so of side-by-side independent reading. On this particular occasion, my college grad daughter joined us. As we all settled in – daughter with A Storm of Swords, kiddo with Henry Huggins – my son looked over at me, started laughing hysterically, and said, “Mom’s reading a comic book!”

My initial reaction was denial – “What? Me? No way… I’m a serious reader!” But when I stopped to think about it, I realized that I should start holding my head up a bit higher when I tell people about the amazing books that I’m reading. Yes, I read graphic novels. And yes, graphic novels can be great literature too!

I don’t remember being much of a comic book fan as a kid, although I do recall reading the Archie comics (I always wanted to be Betty, and thought Reggie was a big jerk), maybe a bit of Richie Rich here or there. No superheroes at all, I’m quite sure. Even for the comics I remember reading, I have no idea where they came from or how they ended up in my hands. I certainly never bought any myself.

Flash forward to my adult years. I read a few of the more “literary” graphic novels (Maus by Art Spiegelman and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi are two that come to mind), but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to explore any further.

I suppose I can point the finger in two different directions, if I want to “blame” anyone for my newfound interest in graphic novels.

First, there’s Joss Whedon. After falling in love with Joss’s Firefly/Serenity ‘verse, I gobbled up everything I could find that was related, including a Serenity graphic novel entitled Those Left Behind. Once I got hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (thanks to massive DVD-watching marathons), I started reading all of the related Buffy titles, such as Tales of the Slayers, Tales of the Vampires, and Fray. When it was announced that Joss would be creating an official season 8 of Buffy in comic book format, my fate was sealed. There was no way that I could not read season 8, and for some reason, reading season 8 has really opened the floodgates for me in terms of my openness toward reading graphic novels.

Second, when my kiddo started 4th grade last year and was forced to do more independent reading, I was concerned when the book he started with was a graphic novel. His teacher set me straight, and told me that it was more important at this stage to let my son read something he enjoyed, rather than what I thought would be good for him. (Thank you, Mr. Allyn, for the great advice, BTW!). The book that my kiddo picked out was Out From Boneville, the first book in the fantastic Bone series by Jeff Smith. My son was hooked, insisted I read the books too, and I became hooked as well.

So here I am, mid-2012, with close to 25% of my reading this year consisting of graphic novels, and I thought I’d share a few of my favorites:

As mentioned:

The Bone series by Jeff Smith – not just for kids! The tale of the three Bone cousins is a mix of adventure, epic quest, and high fantasy, with plenty of humor as well. This series also features the stupid rat creatures, probably my favorite villains ever.

Stupid Rat Creatures!

Buffy season 8 and 9 – If you watched the TV show, you’ve just got to read these. The whole gang is back, and the story that unfolds in season 8 and 9 is considered “canon”.

Plus a few more:

Fables by Bill Willingham – I’m about halfway through this series, and I can’t stop raving about it (as the people around me can verify, with much eye-rolling). The story may sound simple – fairy tale characters have been exiled from their homelands and have taken refuge in New York – but the plot and character development are complex, engaging, and surprising.

N. by Stephen King – truly one of the most frightening things I’ve ever read. N. isn’t very long, but each page is packed with creepy images and a looming sense of evil. Wow.

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch by Neil Gaiman – I haven’t read the short story from which this was adapted, so I have no point of comparison, but I really liked the way the plot works in graphic novel format. Great illustrations, and the pacing maintains a sense of the mysterious throughout.

The Griff  by Christopher Moore – I’ll read anything Christopher Moore chooses to write, and this story of dragons wiping out human life on Earth featured his trademark humor, alongside heaping spoonfuls of chaos and destruction. Good times!

What’s next for me in the world of graphic novels? I’m just finishing up a small handful of Dresden Files graphic novels, and then it’s back to Fables! Volume 11 is calling my name…

What do you think? Do graphic novels “count” as real reading? What are the best graphic novels you’ve read lately? Share your thoughts and recommendations below!

My aha moment

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I’m not talking about the 80s pop band, famous for Take On Me. (Dammit! Now it’s stuck in my head!)

And until I just did a quick Google search, I had no idea that Oprah has somehow cornered the market on “aha”, turning it into something very likely trademarked if written with the appropriate punctuation and capitalization.

I’m talking epiphany here, as in “Eureka! I’ve found it!” Or in my case — “OMG, I finally figured it out!”

e·piph·a·ny

a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

(Thank you, Dictionary.com!)

For the past year or so, I’ve been complaining about the lighting in my house. When I’m ready to read, I move lamps, angle light bulbs just so, or burrow into corners of the couch where the overhead illumination shines perfectly on my page. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s just never quite right.

Suddenly, a few weeks ago, it finally hit me. Maybe it’s not the lighting. Maybe — gasp — it’s my eyes. Sure, I should have caught a clue sooner. Perhaps all that squinting at the teeny, tiny print on my IPhone should have woken me up to the cold hard facts.

The solution was staring me in the face, as it were:

Behold, my very first pair of reading glasses! I swear, it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning when I put them on for the first time. My house wasn’t poorly lit after all. Hallelujah! The letters on the page had sharp edges, like little tiny razor blades. The print was practically glowing, it was such a beautiful sight!

It’s love, I swear it. These babies come with me wherever I go. I love them so much, I might marry them. And, I must say, I think I look pretty good when I rock my new specs. To paraphrase the Doctor’s wise words about fezzes, “Reading glasses are cool.”

I haven’t felt this enlightened since the day I realized that I needed HDMI cables in order to get a high def picture on my giant HDTV. (I’m embarrassed to admit that I had said TV for almost a year before that particular epiphany hit me.)

So my bursts of insight come to me in their own sweet time. So my epiphanies aren’t exactly earth-shaking. I’m okay with that. My new reading glasses rock my world, and considering how many hours a day, a week, a year I spend with my nose buried in a book, that’s really a life-changing “aha”!

Don’t bother me. I’m reading.

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Are reading and being part of a social unit mutually exclusive?

Why is it that I feel the need to sneak in order to satisfy my reading desires?

I’ve often said that if I didn’t have a husband and kids, I would be most naturally inclined toward the life of a hermit. I can see it now — holed up for hours in my house, just me, a pair of fuzzy slippers, a steaming mug of coffee, and piles and piles of books. I’d come up for air occasionally — hit the kitchen, grab a snack, take a bathroom break — then dive back into the pages of whatever novel happens to be my obsession at the moment. If it’s a sunny day, maybe I’d even take my mug, slippers, and book out on the back porch for a change of scenery and a breath of fresh air. Doesn’t sound half bad, if you ask me.

And yet… I’m a mom, I’m part of a family, and I love all my various and sundry people like crazy. But, for realz, there just aren’t enough hours in a day for work, kid time, homework time, play time, couple time, house time — the list is endless. So where does that leave me and my piles of books?

Consider this scenario from a recent vacation: My husband, son, and I were on a lovely camping trip, and decided to spend the day by the nearby lake. Hubby and kid wanted to rent a motorboat; I most emphatically do not do boats. So off they went, and I spent a very enjoyable hour on our picnic blanket, novel in hand, sun on my face, blissfully reading and relaxing. When they returned, my son’s first comment to me was, “Mom! You’re on vacation! Everyone else here is having fun, and you’re just sitting there reading a book!” It pained me to have to explain to my own flesh and blood that, hey, this is my idea of fun!

And so, I sneak. When I wake up on a weekend morning, I grab my book and read a quick chapter before getting out of bed and joining the family. When my son decides to work on his latest video game, off I head with my book. When he gets in the shower at night, out the book comes again. It’s not until we’ve finished up the bedtime rituals and the kid is safely ensconced in slumber for the night that I can sit down publicly in my own house, put up my feet, and enter my reading zone. No sneaking required.

I wish I could put up a Do Not Disturb sign every now and then, and declare myself temporarily off-limits. When the lights are flashing, do not approach mom! My pleas for “five more minutes”, “let me finish my chapter”, or “wait! I’m at a good part!” would be a thing of the past.

I’m a good mother, try to be a good spouse, but honestly, would a little more time to read hurt anybody? Never mind, don’t answer that.