excerpts.

I usually feel like I’m procrastinating when I read books that aren’t “educational.” What I tend to forget is that there’s an emotional education that comes from reading books for pleasure. Spending hours with these books would normally leave me feeling guilty for not accomplishing “something.” Getting absorbed in a book, identifying with characters by filling in their emotional leaps and travails with analogous feelings of my own, even if they aren’t analogous but are simply as strong seems to lead to experiences that are probably just as fulfilling as learning a new tidbit or skill. It’s too bad that there’s no gauge or degree or measure for emotional maturity. It would be so much easier to walk next to someone you’ve just recently met and would like to get to know better, someone who’s quirky and cute and has a slightly swollen jaw and say “I may dress like an 8, but I’m really a 3” and have them say back, with a lisp, “I think I’m a 7 but I’m actually an 8,” shake hands and go on with our lives. No fuss, no muss, no two years getting to that conclusion. So it’s books like these who wouldn’t be considered “literary” by anyone in a tower that occupied my January.  I wanted to post this after I'd finished State-Building by Fukuyama, but that slim book is so dense it should be given to some small rogue nation to jumpstart it's nuclear program.  It's really facinating, but the level of concentration that it takes to read a few pages is more than's required for either of the two I read this month.

So this month - to finally get to it - I read The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Time Traveler's Wife.  These books are like Frosted Mini-Wheats that've gotten soggy: you started eating them and even though they rapidly become overgooey, they're still yummy to eat.  The Girl's Guide follows the life of an aspiring editor and how she eventually winds her way through love and relationships to something that looks like love.  Lots of snarkiness due to self-preservation and defensiveness seemed pretty familiar, though the cameo by “The Rules” seemed fake.  Maybe a fluffy movie could be made out of this.  Oh, right, wondering where I got these books, you are.  The Girl's Guide is Lenore's, she'd left it at my place.  Amanda borrowed me The Time Traveler's Wife, insisting I read it.  Not sure why she did that, but I'm nice so I did.  Better for it, I think.

The Time Traveler's Wife follows the life, more or less chronologically, of a woman who's long term relationship is with a man who has “chronodisplacement” disease - Henry blips in and out of time.  The time traveling bit seemed pretty neat and I'd savored the times that Niffenegger would talk about Henry and his disorientation for almost all the book until I realized that the real interesting bits were the dedication, attitude and faith of the protagonist, Claire.  It was a bit of a see-saw ride, as Henry's life starts out going somewhat backwards in the beginning, then starts to progress with more cohesion after the middle of the book.  Claire, who appears to have been modelled after Niffenegger (artist, doing papercraft, long hair, etc.) is one of those idyllic characters who has “flaws” like an evergreen sometimes has christmas decorations - it's not the natural state.  It's way sad, yet disturbingly reassuring knowing the future of all these characters.  Even at the end, I was left wondering why life isn't really more like this book, sad, but in the end, all worth it - with the satisfaction of knowing that it was actually worth all the sappiness.

I bought The Neocon Reader because I saw a very interesting talk on CSPAN2 one Saturday morning.  It was great asking for it in Barnes.  People stared.  At this point in time, I think they'd stare less if I asked to see their section of books in Arabic.  Oprah's book club might have the volume, but I dig the quality of recommendations I've gotten from CSPAN.   I might love CSPAN more than the CIA Factbook.  I can only hope that one day they fight for my attentions.  The Rand I picked up because Jack's father-in-law was reading it and then Jack started reading it.  I can't remember much about it, so rereading is the way to go.  I'll probably delay reading it because I've The Fountainhead that's been left half-read, abandoned from when Lenore and I tried to read a book together, to read.  I liked what I read of it, so I think next month'll be positively Randy.