Books are on my mind lately. I am reading like a maniac and feeling urges to review the books! I don't want my random meanderings to have to be renamed 'book reviews'. So today, I will not do a book review.
What I am thinking about is why I am in this bookish mode and why have I completely changed the pattern of my reads in the last few months. I always read. Alot. But for many years my reads have been light and always have a happy ending.
Maybe because I don't watch television much and this is my form of entertainment - but the kind of entertainment where you really don't have to think, just zone on out and everything turns out ok in the end. Kind of like watching a sitcom I guess. A bit mindless.
Maybe it was because my own life wasn't turning out ok in the end and I needed to get away from that. Maybe because I am one of those people that when I am reading - I am right there in the book, the 'real' world disappears, and if there were upsetting things in the book, I would be upset and I did not want that. I had enough upsets in my real life to deal with.
Maybe my reading is changing because my life is better lately than it was a few years ago. I feel more able to handle emotions in a book - and also in my life - without dropping into a pit of misery in my real world. It doesn't mean I have stopped living inside the books I am reading - but I can handle the emotions inside the book. So far anyway.
Julie and Julia was my initial leaving of the happily ever after romance novels I had been reading. That wasn't very traumatic - nor did it have any really depressing stories inside it.
But my next one, Still Alice, scared me before I started reading it. I was afraid. Seriously. I was afraid it would grab something inside me and rip it apart and I would drop back into my pit. I didn't! The book touched me, no question about that. I feel I lived with Alice and her family. I was inside Alice's head and could feel her emotions. But no pit of misery awaited me in my real world.
Instead - I was encouraged to continue my venture out into variety. Into books that challenge me to think and feel instead of just mush.
I'm loving it. I don't know why my pit has disappeared - seemingly for good, but I am glad it has gone.
Maybe things do turn out ok in the end.
