Rekindling an Old Flame

Recently, I’ve begun reading again. I always knew that I liked to read, but I forget about the pure pleasure of it! Finding the time to start reading again is like returning to an old lover, one who accepts you with open arms and no guilt, as if no time had passed.

[Author’s Note: Wait a minute! Who actually has a former lover like that? Why would you ever leave such a person? Inquiring minds want to know! I’d like to blame this floweriness of spirit on romance novels read during an impressionable age, but I’ve never romance novels. Hold your horses, Little Lady! I officially blame this romantic allusion on The Thorn Birds. Father Ralph … talk about an unavailable male … who will make himself available for the right woman … kind of! But I digress.]

For me, no matter what is going on in life, books accept me, invite me to foreign lands and different eras. I can try on different personas, professions, genders, galaxies… only limited by the authors I select.

The resurgence of desire to be consumed by the written word coincides with the beginning of my blog. I definitely covet the ability to be able to create a living, breathing universe only using the QWERTY keyboard! MacGyver has nothing on these people! Rather than feeling I could never do that, I’m instead left with a desire to try.

Lately I’ve been exploring new genres. Growing up, I stayed well clear of science fiction. It wasn’t cool; I saw people getting mocked for it; that wasn’t going to be me. What a loss! I’d flirted with it in the past – Stranger in a Strange Land, Ender’s Game (and Shadow), various Ray Bradbury works – but never considered myself a sci fi person. My new decade of life is leading me to try even more new things and explore the labels I’d previously embraced or shunned (coming up soon will be a revisiting of my anti-creative stance!). I’ve publicly embraced Larry Niven (well, his work at least, and scared the living bejezzus out of myself reading Lucifer’s Hammer because I wasn’t prepared for the comet! DH2U read it during our recent San Diego blackout – braver soul than I!). My venture into Canadian political satire with Terry Fallis’ Best Laid Plans had me laughing hysterically with every page! I’ve also made my first attempt at Westerns with a Zane Gray novel. I got halfway and realized I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and just wanted to know more about the time period – Utah pre-Statehood. I will give the genre another go later. Maybe I should throw in a Danielle Steele when brain candy is in the cards.

And that is another change I’ve noticed. If it isn’t assigned for a class, I don’t have to finish it if I don’t want to. Growing up my mother would put on an old movie and told me if after a half hour I didn’t like it, we could change the channel. Sure enough, by the half hour mark I was smitten, and we would watch the entire movie. There was only one exception: I don’t remember the movie, but I will never forget the crushed look on her face when I went to change the channel. I use this same strategy with books (without the look of disappointment!). I give them two to three chapters to grab me. Most do, some do not. But having that exit plan in place, allows me to try new things without have to commit to hundreds of pages of potential misery.

What activities give you that “coming home” feeling? Anyone have any book recommendations?