Photo by jinterwas
If you have been around this blog for a while...you know I'm a reader.
And if you are new around here. Hey! Guess what?? I'm a HUGE reader!
Like...I have a 3/4 sleeve tattoo of books.
Yes, it's that bad.
And yes...I still know that I need to post pictures.
But if you didn't know this about me...I'm kind of lazy and procrastinatey.
Anyway.
So last week sometime (or maybe the week before...I don't know. Like I said, I'm lazy!) my older sister posted on her Facebook this message:
"Thanks to my sister I have read some amazing books in my life. Thanks Manna!!"
See...someone on her Facebook page asked if anyone had read The Memoirs of Cleopatra. I read it back in 2006 and made my older sister read it in 2009. She was so excited someone was asking about it.
This led her to start looking through her Goodreads list and she realized that because of me (and me bringing her into my "back home" book group) she had read some really amazing books that she would never have read if not for me.
My family members tend to find a genre and stay there. My mother and older sister both read a lot of horror and science fiction/fantasy stuff. Whereas, I'm ALL OVER the map (working for Barnes & Noble for a million years made me that way!).
My older sister looking at her Goodreads and talking about all these amazing books made me start examining the books I have been reading lately. And I'm sad to say...I've been reading a lot of crap!
Not that the stuff I've been reading wasn't good...it's just stuff that I consider "fluff." Fun...but not really substantial you know??
Don't get me wrong now...I love me some fluff. But I am the type of person that likes some heavy thrown in with all that popcorn.
Let's look at what I've been reading.
I read all the books by Emily Giffin. These include:
So, obviously I went through a chick lit phase. No problem. They were fun books, though the cheating and unhappiness within relationships got a little old by the end.
I also read the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins which I thoroughly enjoyed. But they are young adult books, so not so much on the heavy, intellectual side.
At the end of last year and beginning of this year, I was reading The Immortals series by Alyson Noel. These books were cute. They offered something a little different than the whole vampire thing. But again, young adult books that didn't have anything really deep to them.
A friend of mine bought me the book Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. This book was half vampire story and half biology/parasite lesson. Another great twist to the idea of vampirism but yet another young adult book that didn't really fire many synapses (though it did have a pretty awesome "ewwwww" factor as far as all the parasite talk went).
In the midst of all this, I did read a book on M. Night Shyamalan called The Man Who Heard Voices that was an interesting account of the making of Lady in the Water (a movie that I absolutely adore). It was a very good book. But you have to really like the guy I guess. He is passionate about what he does and it's evident in this book.
I also read Stone of Tears and Blood of the Fold (the second and third books in the Sword of Truth series) by Terry Goodkind. To me, these are fluff because they are fantasy. But The Hubble feels they are substantial because they have heavy philosophical and religious undertones that get the reader thinking. I can definitely see his point. But it's not the "classics" you know??
Oh yeah. The last book I read was Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. Don't even get me started on that book. It made me mad. It was slow and full of unnecessary and pointless dialogue. It was definitely not the man's best and for sure not the 'rom dram' I was looking for at the time.
So...all of this to say that I'm disappointed in myself. I need to get some good stuff in here. I want to read amazing books again. I want to read books that leave me reeling and confused. I want a book that inspires emotion and feeling. I want a book that inspires me.
Right now, I'm doing a 'buddy read' with Kaitlin and another friend of mine. We are reading Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Though this is a 'classic' I'm not sure it's the type of book of which I'm searching.
So...have you read anything great lately???
