Dilemma

So, I have been reading "Wickett's Remedy" since last week, and I have reached a point where I'm not sure I want to continue. This is distressing to me, because I HATE to not finish books once I start them. There have been occasions where I hated a book so much I finished it just to spite the author (I know, this makes NO sense). A prime example of this is "The Third Twin" by Ken Follett. I liked a lot of his earlier books, especially "Pillars of the Earth," but this one was just awful. I finished it anyway, seething with rage the whole time. Anyway, I am about 100 pages into "Wickett's Remedy," and the story really hasn't grabbed me. Nancy Pearl, the famous book-recommending librarian, has a rule that says if you're not into a book after 50 pages, you should abandon it. This book seemed promising after 50 pages, but it's really not going anywhere after 100. I have so many other books I want to read, it seems like a waste of time to keep reading one I'm not really enjoying.... (I hit one of my favorite used book stores yesterday and bought three more... I know, I have a problem).

Sick days

I have been very delinquent in posting, mainly because I have been sick :( One of the benefits of being sick, though, is that you get to stay home and read all day. Yayyyy. On Monday I stayed home and read "The Devil Wears Prada," which was a perfect way to spend a sick day. A very guilty pleasure, and it also made me feel that my job is nothing to complain about. I'm looking forward to watching the movie and seeing how Meryl Streep portrays the insanity of Miranda.

I also finished "Black Mass" and have moved onto another book with Southie connections, although in a very different way. "Wickett's Remedy," by Myla Goldberg, is a novel set in Boston during the 1918 influenza outbreak. I haven't gotten very far in the book yet, but I liked the descriptions of Southie in the early 1900s.

"Julie and Julia"

This book, by Julie Powell, is what gave me the idea to start a blog. Powell, a 29-year-old secretary in New York, decided one day that she would make her life more meaningful by cooking her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year. And, she would blog about it. I found myself totally drawn into the book, maybe because of my odd fascination with reading about people with really messed up lives. A good book to read when you are looking for an escape from your own messed up life. Reading this book inspired me to flip through Julia Child's cookbook at Barnes & Noble, but I was definitely not inspired enough to actually try any of the recipes.... especially not any of the ones that involve digging out marrow from a cow bone or bisecting a live lobster.....enough said. You'd think that as a vegetarian (mostly) I would be grossed out just by reading about such things, but I was strangely mesmerized—maybe because I know I will never actually eat such things. Anyway, good old Julie seemed to be having a pretty good time with her blog, when she wasn't wrestling with mayonnaise that refused to combine, so I thought I would follow suit—without the cooking part though.

Introduction

OK, I stole the title of my blog from this excellent book by Sara Nelson. I admit it. I'm also stealing the premise of her book - she basically spent a year reading as many books as she could, and then wrote about it. Not a bad way to spend a year. Though, even if I spent an entire year reading, and doing nothing else (well, except sleeping and eating), I wouldn't be able to make it through the shelves full of unread books in my apartment. Last April, sensing the overflowing nature of my bookcases, my boyfriend gave me the very thoughtful gift of a new bookcase, which is of course now jammed full of books I have since accumulated but not read.

But let's get to the point - my plan for this blog is just to write about whatever I happen to be reading. I'm not really narcissistic enough to think anyone will care much about what I'm reading, but my friends who know what a bookworm I am often ask me for book recommendations. I tend to divide my reading pretty evenly between fiction and nonfiction, although so far this year I have been favoring nonfiction.

So.....let's get started. Right now I am reading "Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob," by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. It's a book written by two Boston Globe reporters about the activities of South Boston gangster Whitey Bulger and some very corrupt Boston FBI agents during the 1970s and 80s. If you've seen "The Departed," Bulger is the real-life gangster that the Jack Nicholson character was based on. It's a fascinating story, especially for me since I live in the Boston neighborhood where Whitey grew up and based his criminal operations. All I can say is, Southie has changed A LOT since those days.... Whitey is on the lam and the old bar where he hung out is now fixed up and surrounded by a sushi place, a yuppie bar and tons of luxury condos. I didn't know much about this story until I started reading this book - it's almost unbelievable how far the FBI was willing to go to protect Bulger, who was in their eyes a valuable informant, but was literally getting away with murder. All in all, this is a very interesting look at a sordid piece of Boston history.

In future posts, I will talk about a few of the books that I have read earlier this year....