Reading Vortex
Do you ever get caught in the reading vortex? You start out slow, just this one story, just this one book, and then you get into it and it starts moving faster and you need to read more to keep up before you know it, you’ve spent the whole day reading and nothing has gotten done but it doesn’t matter because the characters are still in motion and the story isn’t finished. You finish that book and find that you’re still being sucked in; into the next book in the series, the next book by the author, the book like it. You can’t stop. You’re being pulled along by this need to know, what happens next, what other worlds are out there, what characters haven’t you met yet? And it goes on and on, pulling out down, away from real life and into the world crafted of words and white-space.
This is what Terry Pratchett has done to me this week. I could have been so productive, but noooo, I had to pick up Reaper Man. And I had to finish Reaper Man once I started it. And then I wanted more Discworld. More Death, to be precise. The phrase “I love Death” is not one I generally ever thought I would say out loud or otherwise. However, the character of Death as portrayed in the Discworld books is a wonderfully fluffy being, metaphorically speaking, who I just want to hug all the time. But I can’t read more of the Death novels because I want to save The Hogfather for Christmas reading and I’ve already read Soul Music and I don’t have Mort so I can’t read that one yet, and so I must wait to continue with Death’s adventures with his granddaughter.
I started Equal Rights earlier this week, once I had finished Reaper Man. I got a bit distracted, however, when I discovered the Runaways mini series from Marvel. The series is about six teenagers who discover their parents are all part of some super villain group called the Pride. In response, they decide to run away and form a plan to take down their parents’ organization and stop their evil plan. Sure, it’s riddled with some teen drama stuff, but it’s really well written and beautifully drawn. The kids are all super unique, too. There’s an alien, a girl with a dinosaur for a pet and an 11-year-old mutant with super strength. This poor girl. She’s just hitting puberty and gets her first period as the whole thing kicks off and everyone’s running around hitting things and bickering and she just wants to know what’s going on. The whole time I wanted to shake someone and say “Get this kid a heating pad and some ibuprofen! Come on!” One of the cool things about the group is that it’s very female dominated, which is unusual for super groups. I’ve made it to the second series and I can’t talk about the first one because my husband hasn’t finished it yet.
So I’ll probably spend most of my day reading, again, and being sucked farther and farther into the vortex of stories that are all around me. My list of things to read just keeps getting longer and getting shuffled around and reorganized and it’s all so flowy. I’d like to read Pride and Prejudice this fall. It just feels like the perfect book to sit outside with on a crisp autumn afternoon. I can go down to the little park by our house, maybe, and enjoy it there, or just walk up to the graveyard and sit on the steps. Also, the Spoon River Anthology. How cool would it be to read Spoon River in a graveyard? I’ll have to wear something classic and flowy if I do. And read aloud. I think it’ll be great fun. I also need to read Frankenstein, since I borrowed it from my in-laws. Maybe I’ll put it off for an October reading, but I have to have enough time to read both before winter sets in. We shall see how this goes. I hope you have something fabulous to read, my friends. And have a lovely weekend!
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