book talk

Awhile back I read this article in the guardian which spoke about the different kinds of attention books can get. How one might be lauded as a great American novel and the other is seen as a good book. The author mostly believes it had to do with the gender of the authors. Now all of that is a conversation for another day, but it did interest me in reading the book written by the woman. It is called The Cookbook Collector. I don't read a ton of modern fiction (not that modern fiction is bad -and like any period in the history of novels -some are good, some are not so good and others are awful) but it is good to see what is out there. I got it from the library (took awhile to get in) and I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about the book. There was a part of me that almost felt like it was a chore or some form of homework that I had assigned myself. I figured it would take me about a week to get through since I can usually manage about 50 pages a day of reading. It isn't that I lack time to read exactly but it is difficult to get uninterrupted time. Small children like to literally pull books out of my hands. Yet they have been kind about this book. Instead I read it in a few days. Damn that book pulled me in. The main characters are these two sisters, Emily and Jess. Emily is traditionally successful, driven, ambitious and on the path to great things. She has her life more or less sorted. Complete with an equally successful boyfriend. Jess kind of floats about in the world. She is a doctoral student studying philosophy at Berkeley. She works part-time in an antiquarian bookshop and her relationships aren't exactly the most lovely or solid. And from there it takes off. Inter-connected lives and relationships and so on. What much of the book also is about is what the value is in something and how it may mean the world or might mean nothing and how it is all so transient. I suppose that isn't much of a description but there is so much I don't want to give away.

There are some descriptions in the story about books that are so beautiful and heart-breaking. There was also a scene that was so heavy with sexual tension and I was completely engrossed. I was making tea and waiting for it to finish steeping and reading the scene. I was pulled out of it suddenly when my daughter yanked on trousers. I felt slightly embarrassed like I had been spying on someone. I finished the book today and I feel like I do when I finish my cup of tea or bar of chocolate before I realize it. "damn. when did that happen?" That disappointment of it being gone. So it was indeed a good book for me.

And with that I have managed to read twenty books so far this year. It is the year of getting some reading done yo.
Now to look at the pile of things to get through and line up stuff for the next month or so.