I'm passionate about reading. I love it. I can't wait to retire so I can do it more. And I like to think that I read a pretty fair variety of stuff, books that challenge me, educate me, and entertain me too.
A few weeks ago I read a book called My Reading Life, by Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides. It's a terrific book about his influences, what he grew up reading, the culture of books in his family, and books that have special meaning for him. This is a guy who has committed to reading 200 pages a day since he was 14 years old. So I listened.
I was inspired by his comments on Leo Tolstoy, and resolved to read Anna Karenina, which I finished on Sunday. It probably took me about a month, and depending on the copy it's around 1000 pages. So every time I sat down to read it, I read about 10 pages and got about 1% more of the book done. It took some effort. It was pretty good.
After reading a classic, I always find that the best part is how easy everything else is afterwards. And this time is no exception. I've been starting to hear about a book called The Hunger Games, and gave it a try. A small departure from Tolstoy, it's a bleak futuristic battle to the death among impoverished teenagers. And excuse the pun, I'm positively devouring it. I started it Monday and would be shocked if it's not done tonight. Fortunately I just found out there are two more books in the series, whew, that was close.
All this makes me reflect on time spent reading the 'classics.' I've never liked them quite as much as a page turner, and I think that's common. Classics are worth reading every once in a while, maybe it just comes with the territory. But there is nothing more satisfying in reading than to be thoroughly gripped, engrossed in a story, and I'll take it wherever I can get it. Read Hunger Games.
