for me, there is nothing better than getting into bed early enough to open a good book and just get lost. right now i am totally engrossed in the meaning of night by michael cox, and i read over a hundred pages last night when i intended to read a chapter or so. i love that feeling you get when you lose yourself in a book, unable to even remember what is going on in your own life because you have been so engrossed on turning the pages. books can really make you feel something.
now that i am older, i definitely have a kind of book that i love. for me, a good book borders somewhere between poetry and prose. i love fiction, especially when the protagonist is younger [like a child, as weird as it sounds]. i discovered my book 'type' in amsterdam's schipol airport, browsing bookstands while waiting for my flight back to prague back in 2007. i came across extremely loud and boy in the striped pajamas and bought them both on a whim. it wasn't until after i read extremely loud that i realized both were narrated by eight-year-old boys, and i loved the innocence and different perspective of reading through that view.
now, i will say that extremely loud is without a doubt my favorite book, and i've read it at least five times since my first time in 2007. i've given it as a gift multiple times, and i own multiple copies because i've torn out a few of my favorite pages to frame around the house. there is nothing more beautiful than that book.
a few of my favorite lines from my favorite book that tug at my heartstrings every time i read them:
i like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can i say, i like to see people run to each other, i like the kissing and the crying, i like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, i like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone... [p.109]another...
...we laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which i lived my life and didn't think about my life at all. [p. 28]
and one more...
i told her how i felt, this is how i told her: i held her hands out to her sides, i pointed her index fingers toward each other and slowly, very slowly, moved them in, the closer they god, the more slowly i moved them, and then, as they were about to touch, as they were only a dictionary page from touching, pressing on opposite sides of the word 'love,' i stopped them, i stopped them and held them there. i don't know what she thought, i don't know what she understood, or what she wouldn't allow herself to understand, i turned around and walked away form her, i didn't look aback, i won't. [p. 135]as i write my book, i think that if i can write anything that makes someone really feel something, i will have accomplished my goal. i know i may never be a great writer like some of my favorites, but i hope that reading some of my favorites over and over can inspire me and help me bring out just a little more emotion in my writing.
here is my go-to reading list when i need a good book or when someone needs a recommdnation:
- extremely loud and incredibly close by jonathan safran foer
- everything is illuminated by jonathan safran foer
- on beauty by zadie smith
- a history of love by nicole krauss
- great house by nicole krauss
- the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime by mark haddon
- let the great world spin by colum mc cann
- the brief wondrous life of oscar wao by junot diaz
- the boy in the striped pajamas by john boyne
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