Because we all want to pop up naked in the Newberry Library.
This most recent installment of "Julie's Book Club" has us reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which turns out to be absolutely mesmerizing and unlike anything I've read in a while. It's not time traveling like Connie Willis time travels, and it's not really science fiction, it's just a really surprising love story that isn't overdone. The main character is a librarian who time travels back and forth between his own life, and the whole book seems to take on fate vs. free will and all sorts of other crazy issues.
Anyway, I'm just over a half way through, so I'll keep you, my devoted readers, posted.
However, here's a great quotation taken from an essay by the author, Audrey Niffenegger. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's so nicely worded:
The delightful part about making anything is that no story or picture is ever complete. When I am reading, I add things to the story that were never put there by the writer. When you read my writing, you have your own vision of each character, and your own understanding of their motives and desires. If I could put my eye to your brain I would hardly recognize my world, it is a collaboration between the two of us. You have your own supply of ideas, which my writing is calling forth.
Excellent news! I'm gainfully employed by an interactive marketing agency! I'll be a proofreader in quality assurance (that's a much more fun term than "quality control," isn't it? I'm just "assuring" not "controlling." More positive, really). Anyway, they do print and a lot of web stuff, so it's all good.
Ergo, I will no longer be planning to work in an undisclosed cave in Butler County.
I think I'd be much happier if I'd just stop having bizarre dreams -- for the past few days, I've been waking up in some pretty terrible moods that can't be calmed by a nice dose of morning talk-show banter.
Dream One: Shopping Trip from Hell
Dream Two: Earwigs Attack
Dream Three: I'll Have the Alfredo, Please
Yeah, so I'm no longer drinking milk before bed. Whoever said that helps you fall asleep skipped the part where it gives you freaky dreams.
I feel like a traitor to the entire female gender for not enjoying Kate Chopin's The Awakening. My thought on it? Awake me when it's over.
Yawn.
That's about all I can muster about that.
It took just under a week to read Anna Karenina, in all it's 800+ page glory. It was a fantastic page turner! I was an addict! I even read the explanatory notes the entire way through. It was that good. (Of course, I'm a sucker for explanatory notes. Pure catnip!)
...Except for those extensive arguments about the zemstva. I'm not that interested in local Russian government of the late 19th century or peasant farm workers, but really. Yawn. It almost made me want to hop into a time machine and clue Tolstoy in on what was going to happen with the worker class after World War I just to make him stop. However, his references to communism and other new philosophies suggested that maybe he had a good idea of the future. That said, it really does deserve high rank on the "best novels ever" list.
Anyway, I'm having a red letter week here. After I read Anna, I picked up a Jennifer Crusie to relax a little, and what do you know, the main character cheats on her husband.
And then the informal book club chain letter that's been going around finally worked it's magic, and when I opened up my mailbox this afternoon I found Kate Chopin's Awakening. Hot dog. I'm guessing from the intro and the jacket that fair Edna strays.
Maybe I'll read Madame Bovary next.
On second thought, maybe I'll just rename the blog "All Julie Ever Does Is Read and Then Report Her Findings." A one-sided book club. Sounds about right.