Best Books vs. Favorite Books

If someone were to walk into a room, point a gun at me, and say, “You have three seconds to tell me the best book you’ve ever read or I’ll shoot.” I would reply wide-eyed with my hands positioned in the international sign of don’t shoot with, “All the Light I Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.” Actually, it wouldn’t take this type of duress for me to give that answer, but it would certainly cut down on my pontifications and get me to the point.

Strangely, if someone were to point a gun at me and say, “You have three seconds to name your favorite book or I’ll shoot.” I would most likely die because to me best books and favorite books are not synonymous. If you are confused, think of it this way, most people would say Schindler’s List is a phenomenal film, but I don’t think many would count it as a favorite.

To me, favorite implies a re-readability and while I’ve read many great books, there are only a rare few that I would want to read again, but those I would read again aren’t necessarily works of literature. Best books are like evening gowns while favorite books are yoga pants.

Naming some of the best books I’ve read is not a particularly difficult task:

All the Light I Cannot See

East of Eden

The Road

Crime and Punishment

But to name my favorite books, good grief, it would take so much time. Time I could use reading other books! The best way may be to think about books I would pack for that proverbial desert isle situation:

Outlander- Ah the romance

The Stand– Ah the allegory

Don Quixote Ah the wit

But this doesn’t work either because my brain is picking the books that have girth and layers. But leaves out wonders such as Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Housekeeper and the Professor. And honestly, while Don Quixote is funny, if I need a good laugh Stephanie Plum novels are where it’s at. I mean a insane dude sallying forth and fighting wind mills is funny, but you can’t beat grandma legitimately shooting a cook chicken off the table during dinner.

It’s odd but the best books seems to be measurable, but favorite books have an allusive factor that I just can’t quite capture or explain. It’s like trying to explain why Die Hard is such a great film. It’s bloody, unrealistic, troupe-y, formulaic, and it’s flippin’ wonderful.

I recently finished A Gentleman in Moscow, and it was the first time I was put out that Goodreads didn’t allow six stars and yet I can’t say it beat my best book All the Light. And it’s not living up to that yoga pants feel either, but it was luxurious. Like a really finely aged wine. I sipped and savored it to the very last page. It is something I think I would like to read again, but it is an indulgence. Is the wine for special occasions the favorite or is the everyday house blend?

The good news is nobody is holding a gun to my head about my favorite book which is good because I don’t have the upper body strength to crawl through air ducts or be as succinct as Mr. John McClain.

The Burden of Borrowed Books

I love when people lend me books. They are free and generally come with a recommendation from a friend or family member, but they also carry a strange, invisible weight.

This burden is twofold: fold one- the lack of choice. For me, many books get lent to me not because I’m dying to read them but because someone else is. I’ve read many fabulous books that I wouldn’t necessarily have ever picked up on my own, but sometimes I get that “have to read” feeling with certain books that I’ve borrowed or rather been bestowed upon me. There are times that I just want to read a book or books that I’ve chosen with no recommendation. I judged the cover and deemed it worth. This is supposedly wrong but doing what is supposedly wrong can be damned liberating. And yes, I could read some of my books between the borrowed ones but that leads us to fold number two.

The reasonable return. I do not care if people tell me to keep their books as long as I like. They are lying, and I know it. While a friend’s library does not have due dates or library fines, everybody expects their books to be returned within a reasonable timeframe. I would say within a year-which is understandably a long time; however, I have a lot of f-ing books to read. Nobody is generally cool with you moving multiple houses with their books in tow. In fact at some point (I would say somewhere between house two and three) that a common law marriage contract has been formed between you and the borrowed book. In which you are now its owner, but you feel grimy about it- like having a summer fling with someone married. Neither of you were serious, but it resulted in a divorce anyway. And thus to not be a book homewrecker you need to read and return borrowed books within a reasonable amount of time making the “have-to-read” factor increase exponentially.

I still love to borrow books or have friends excitedly recommend their latest book beau to me, but I was happy to begin 2022 with all my borrowed books read, so I could read my books. I was thrilled to focus on them and be my cover judge-y self. Alas, it was short lived and within two weeks borrowed books once again appeared on my shelves. However, the stack was smaller than usual. While the clock is ticking, I am making them wait their sweet time, but I admit that I’m starting to feel their weight. So I will need to confront them shortly, but who knows maybe the best book ever is waiting in the stack. I guess I’ll just have to buckle down, perhaps with a glass of wine, and find out.

Odd Reading Goals

For the last two years, I’ve read over 90 books per year. It’s a crazy number of books and not something I aspired to do. It just happened, and while it’s been nice to rip through stack after stack of my TBR pile, there are some downsides to reading so many books.

First off, I generally remember little about the books I read other than if I liked them or not. This isn’t particularly uncommon. In fact, our brains tend to remember book covers and only basic concepts, so we know where to go look for the information again instead of keeping it all “in-house,” so to speak. But reading so many books makes remembering even this simple information difficult. I find myself meshing plot lines and moving characters from one book to another. In one instance, I found myself mad at the main character for not using one of their abilities. Until I remembered that character, and thus that ability, was in the previous book I had read.

Secondly, consuming books at such an alarming rate makes my reading almost robotic. It becomes, in some ways, mindless consumption of the written word. Similar, to binge watching TV simply because it’s there, and you can’t seem to find a way off the couch. Or raiding the fridge even when you’re not hungry but bored, and the hunt will give you something to do. The enjoyment of the reading process was dulled. When you start completing so many books, it’s hard not to wonder and strive to see just how many you can get through.

And finally, reading so many books means that I’m not doing much else in my life because I am not a fast reader. Granted, I haven’t been able to do much else for the last couple of years due to the pandemic, but this year I want to participate more in the world. I want to experience my own life and not just read about the lives of others.

So, this year I have an unusual goal. I want to strive to read 70 books or less. I think 70 books is a very respectable number of books but my hope is that this will mean that I’ve gotten back out into the world and participating in “doing” life.

Although, I must admit I’m off to a bad start having already read 10 books, and we’ve barely cracked into February. However, in my defense, January in Chicago is flippin’ cold and honestly what is more delightful than a fire, a cup of tea, and a book? While I do strive to read slightly less, reading is still a damn fine way to spend ones time.

Needing a Second Chance

I tend to vary what I read. If I finish reading a murder mystery, I will probably want something lighter or at least different such as historical fiction or maybe a quirky complication of essays.

After I finished The Devil’s Aspect, I felt, per usual, I needed to shake things up, so I decided to read I Capture the Castle. It’s an older British novel with a fun and cute main character named Casandra.

Casandra lives in a rundown castle with her sister Rose, brother Thomas, Step-mother Topez, and her one-hit wonder of a novelist father, James.  Their financial situation is dreary, but Casandra keeps her chin up.

Two young men who are not stuck in object poverty show up and the romance game is afoot. Along with schemes to get James back on the writing horse to create some sort of income for the family.

It was a delightful read and yet I struggled with this book. I couldn’t get my brain to flip from The Devil’s Aspect to I Capture the Castle. I felt stuck. I don’t believe this has anything to do with I Capture the Castle. It was fun and funny.  It was a “me” problem- 100 percent.

I’m a bit mad that I struggled so much and that my previous book which wasn’t great seemed to diminish this one as well. I most certainly hope to read I Capture the Castle again. I rarely re-read books and when I do its those that I have all out adored, but I think this book got the fuzzy end of my brain, and it deserves another go.

I think I also deserve to fully enjoy it without something else clogging up my brain cells.  So perhaps next year around this time I will give it another go, so I can get its full essence because I can see it there. I just didn’t get to fully embrace it this first time.

Until next time, happy reading!

Sneaking a Peek

My mother stumbled upon this young adult series called The Rule of 3 by Eric Walters. It’s an apocalyptic story beginning with a global electrical and digital blackout.  I read the first book last year.  It was good and really action packed. It had me on edge, and while it’s a gripping tale, it’s hard to read at times. It gives a very realistic portrayal of how evil and terrible people can be when civilization’s modern conveniences cease to exist.

Thus, while I liked the first book, I took my sweet time getting to the second book.  A few weeks ago, I felt up to the challenge and dove in to the second.  Both characteristics of the first book: action and the cruelty of people were ever present and in many ways were amplified.

I tore through it, but I knew that I would need another break before taking on the final book.  Then the ending happened.

Just as a heads up, this is sort of spoiler part.  I won’t name names, but someone dies.  I couldn’t believe it.  Or rather I didn’t want to believe it.  But it was one of those maybe he didn’t die deaths, the only way to find out is to read the next book.

However, I wasn’t ready to read the next book.  I had finished the second book at work.  I was upset to be left on a cliff.  When I got home that night, I committed one of the ultimate sins.

I looked.

I had to know.  I flipped it open and saw [character name] said.  I leapt for joy.  I don’t know how death was cheated, so I have that to look forward to, and to see if everybody including that character survives all the way through to the end.

I know there will be people that judge me for looking.  I’m pretty sure my husband did, but on this particular event I’m taking the Harry Burns attitude from When Harry Met Sally. He reads the end in all the books first just in case he dies before he finishes it.

So that’s my excuse.  I can happily go about my life until I’m ready to take on the final phase of this series knowing a bit of happy news.

Okay, admit it how many of you have done this?

Literarily Naked

A few weeks ago, I ran out of my house. It was a Friday, and I was running a tad behind schedule. I left with my current book in tow per usual. I had about 90 pages to read. The book was going quick, so I had a fleeting thought of grabbing another one. However, I couldn’t imagine getting through that much before I got home.

Alas, you can probably see where this anecdote ends. I not only finished the book, but I finished it before I even started work. I actually had ten minutes to spare before I would be on the clock. I was left with no bookish material for lunch and the commute home.

I was irked that I hadn’t grabbed another book. I tried to console myself by noting that my lunch hour would be best used writing anyway, and I did have a couple of issues of Science News that I could take on the train to occupy my time.

But I couldn’t help but feel naked. It’s the same feeling I get when I leave my phone at home. I feel weirdly vulnerable and out of sorts. As with my phone and feeling cut off from the world without it, I had no book “blankey” to wrap and protect myself in on my commute home.

The Editor, Kelsey, did have a book at work that I could take home with me, but I wasn’t ready to read that book yet. I had one already picked out at home, and I was really looking forward to it. When 5 o’clock came, I left with my science periodical for the train.

I survived the journey. I learned that there are competing theories on the genetic origins of who populated the Americas first, and that boas kill their prey through breaking blood pressure as opposed to the assumed strangulation.

I love learning new things, but not having a book within my grasp is hard for me to cope with in general. But there’s even something more difficult when I’m between books. I would always be angry to have left my book somewhere to prevent me from reading when I had time, but there is something even more unsettlingly by knowing that currently I have “no” book in the world that I am attached. It’s as if I’ve entered a black void.

Does anyone else feel naked without a book at hand? Or being between books?

Hidden Surprises

I know many of us struggle to find time to read the books that we really want to read.  We “must” read books for book group.  We have books that we need/want to review for Goodreads, our blog, etc.  We have books lent to us by friends and colleagues that we feel an obligation to hurry up and read so we can return them.

I understand that the use of the phrase “must read” sounds ominous, like we have homework. I get that we kind of do it to ourselves, but occasionally we crave to read something that strikes our fancy rather than something with a deadline. Nevertheless, out of all these books that we “must” read, we find ones that are truly surprising.  There are books we never would have picked up if someone hadn’t forcefully thrust them into our lives.

One of these reads came to me as a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law.  My husband, Scott, and I are planning a trip to England and Scotland this year, so she purchased me a book called Call the Nurse: True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isle by Mary MacLeod.

I can honestly say I wouldn’t have read this book up if left to my own devices, but, finding myself in possession of it, I felt that it deserved a fair shake. After finishing Brandon Sanderson’s 1300-page tome Word of Radiance—awesome in spite of its length—I felt that I needed a change of pace. It seemed like the perfect time to give Nurse a go.

I admit that the writing style isn’t the most eloquent or masterful, but it is genuine and straightforward. I found the short, simple anecdotes charming and interesting. MacLeod’s descriptions created a great picture without being overly burdensome.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere Iowa so on certain levels I identified with the simplicity of country life MacLeod portrays.  Although, I was a bit luckier to have a few more modern convinces. If anything, it inspired me to jot down some of the crazier stories of my childhood.  Perhaps people would like to read about working in a corn maze or learning about the concept of beer chips.

Anyway, Call the Nurse turned out to be a nice read that I’m really happy my mother-in-law picked up for me.  I find I’m now more interested in exploring other memoirs. Sometimes those “must” reads turn into “glad I did” reads.

Are there any hidden treasures you’ve discovered?

The Commute

It’s 6:58 in the morning.  The sky is a violet gray as the morning light begins to dawn. Bright orange streaks hover at the horizon.  There is stark white snow on the still, bare branches of the trees in the park.  It is a peaceful scene.

I stand admiring the view at my usual stop.  I hear the squeal of breaks as the bus clamors to a halt.

I board with the other morning commuters and make my way to the back of the bus.  I choose a seat, facing the rising sun.  It’s nice to see something so beautiful on an ordinary day.

I pull out my book and turn to my red paper-clip.  As a bookmark, paper-clips may not be pretty, but they are functional.

…

I’m on the Vegas strip.  I’m looking out a hotel window at the brilliant lights.  I’m anxiously waiting for the phone to ring.  I’ve changed from my red evening gown into my normal uniform: a starched white button-down shirt and black pants.

This will be over soon.  As which point there will most likely be an ethics committee hearing but sometimes you have to work on the edge in order to win.  That’s what Vegas is all about.

The phone rings. It’s not the sharp trill one would expect. It sounds like the ring of a phone in a quiet receptionist suite. It is unnervingly calm.

…

I feel a jolt and look up.  The bus has stopped outside my office building.  I move my red paper clip and quickly close my book as I scramble to exit the bus.

It’s been a half-hour since I got on.  Traffic must have been moving well.  I hadn’t noticed.  And in that time, I travelled to two places simultaneously.

I look down the street.  The sun is up. It is looming above the lake, and I realize that it is going to be an extraordinary day.

 

Book Stickage

When I was a kid my mom and I came up with the term “song stickage”. It referred to how easily songs got stuck in our heads.  “Beauty School Drop Out” from the soundtrack in Grease was so “sticky” that we skipped the song almost every time we played the CD because neither one of us wanted to sing it for the next week.

There are quite a few songs that easily lodge themselves in my brain; however, I can’t necessarily say the same about books.  Other bloggers have mentioned that they can say they’ve read a book.  They can even say they thought it was great, but they can’t remember anything about it.

I figure, at least, I’m in good company, but this can be problematic especially with book series.  I don’t generally binge read series. I need breaks in between each book.  There are a few fancy series, I really need a break from since all the books are thousand plus page tomes.  The books are great, but they can be literally and metaphorically heavy. The breaks I take can be lengthy, a year plus.  I don’t always want them to be this long, but they can be for a variety of reasons.

Then of course, when I get back to a series, I run the risk of being confused for the first third of the next book as my brain struggles to re-call what the hell happened in the last book.

However, there are some books that do stick. Given that this is rare for me, these are the books I tend to view with a bit of awe.  For instance, I read Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings approximately ten months ago, and when I began the second book just a few weeks ago, I was shock at how much I remembered of the first.

My husband listened to these books, so we talked about them, but I talk about a lot of books and don’t normally remember much.  Perhaps it’s because he constantly asked me what was happening in the book.  I would then give a brief update on all the characters, maybe this is what cemented them in my memory.  I had to constantly recall them to give a summary report over dinner? Or it could be Sanderson writing style? I honestly don’t know.

Now the trick is to remember the 1300 page of Word of Radiance until late this year or early next year, when I will read the next book in the series. My husband and I talked a lot about this book as well so perhaps I can test my theory about nightly quizzes being the key to remembering.

In the past, the books with the most stickage were books I actually didn’t like, and I wished I could forget.  This kind of bad stickage is really annoying and thus while I can give some kudos to catchy songs that get suck in my head even if they aren’t works of musical genius, I can’t say the same for books.

Does this happen to you?  Do the books you didn’t like stick around in your head while the ones you loved leave?

The Great and Powerful…Meh

My mother and aunt stumbled upon a used bookshop that has a fun section called Blind Date with a Book.  All the books were wrapped in white paper with a brief and catchy description of said book.  This is all you have to go on when selecting your “date.”

The idea struck their fancy, so they purchased “a date.” My aunt’s turn out to be The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.  It’s a great book but neither one of them had read it.  My mother’s turned out to be Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters.  When my mother started reading it, she seemed a bit…“meh.”

In fact, she seemed pretty “meh” about the whole experience. However, she liked it enough to put it in my pile to take back with me when I visited for Christmas.  Naturally, this response didn’t lead me to be super excited about it, but about a while ago I had finished The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper and needed a new book.  I was feeling a bit indecisive, so I grabbed a few off the shelf and threw them on the couch and asked my husband to pick for me. He glanced through the titles and saw the word “naked” and immediately grinned and said, “I pick this one!”  I laughed and agreed that it would be my next read.

So, on my way home from work the next day, I started Naked Once More, and I found it really interesting.  I would not describe my feeling as “meh.”  And I wondered if my mom’s lackluster reaction had lowered my expectations and thus it easily exceed them?

She didn’t tell me anything about the book prior to my reading other than the title and that is was alright. (Yeah, I know she really sold me.) My mother normally isn’t a shoulder shrugger when it comes to books.  The reviews are normally glowing of greatness or raving of horribleness.  Indifferent is an unusual state of being for her and probably in a way piqued my curiosity which is why I threw it on the couch at Scott when asking him to choose.

I feel like this book is a pretty good representation of how our expectations and knowledge prior really affect our view of the story.  What’s funny is when I finished it, and I told my mother that I actually really enjoyed it she said, “Yeah, it was good wasn’t it?”  I was immediately confused. I questioned, “You liked it?”  Then she was confused, “Yeah of course I liked it.”

I wonder now if I had known her true feelings if my expectations would have been different and if I would have reacted to it differently.  I don’t purposely find fault with the books I’m recommended, but I think they get held to a certain subconscious standard that for this book I didn’t have. I spent most of the book trying to figure out what my mother thought it lacked. Obviously, we had mis-communicated, but I think that lead to some interesting results and deduction. I admit I would be interested in potentially reading more “shoulder shruggers” to see how I feel about them.

How do your expectations affect the books you read?