Currently Reading

Remember when summer would roll around and the summer reading list for school would be released? I always looked forward to finding out what books were on the list and going to the library or book store, picking out the books, and coming home to pour over the pages all summer long.

I really miss the summer reading list. Being an adult is sometimes not as magical as being a child or adolescent. When I find that magic slipping away, I try to hold on to those simple things, like a reading list, that are able to inspire the levels of jubilation I experienced as a youth.

This summer seems to be consumed by work and moving. . . and little else.

I have, however, managed to create my own summer reading list, of sorts, and I'm currently working on what I think is one of the best books I have ever read.

The summer started with a selection made by Dana, for the e-book club. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, was a fun, easy read. I enjoyed starting the summer with a romance, set the the backdrop of post-World War II England. The love story is light and sweet, but the real jewel of the novel is the stories of the German occupation of the Guernsey Channel Islands. I had no prior knowledge of this event and reading about it in a fictional setting was, I think, a very interesting way to learn about it. I am a big fan of post-war fiction. War alters so much more than the landscape of a country, it is ever-present in the minds of the people who live through it. The novel was simple, but I love any book that reminds me of the weight of war.

I decided to stay on the British track for my next novel selection. David has been urging me for some months to read Last Orders by Graham Swift, so I obliged him. The story is about four men, charged with the duty of spreading the ashes of their friend. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the men, including the dead friend (prior to his death, of course). The stories are funny, disturbing, touching; they encompass the events of the men's lives and show the entanglement that results from a lifetime of friendship.

I am currently working on a novel that is very different from anything I have ever read. White Noise by Don DeLillo is, on the surface, a story about a typical blended family living in the 1980s. But beyond that, it is a post-modern examination of what makes a life. I think DeLillo suggests that what so many of our lives consist of is distraction and that the driving force of our distraction is an all-encompassing fear. Fear of what? DeLillo talks about one particular fear in the novel, bit I don't think it's as simple as categorizing our fears, I think the novel suggests that life itself is a fearsome thing. I am about half-way through the novel, and I am in love with DeLillo's writing. His phrasing of simple sentences is beautiful and the characters, while sometimes troubling, are so ridiculously human. I love literature that is able induce long periods of introspection and self-examination. White Noise is definitely one such book.

images via about.com, book rags.com and bookswim.com