Winter Reading

There have been two books sitting on my bookshelf for years begging to be read. I'm not sure how books can generate guilt but these two have piled it on until I finally committed to read both of them during my two winter months away from home. As I packed them up an immediate sense of relief swept over me. Finally I was doing SOMETHING to get these off my literary To Do list.

Part of the delay in picking these up off my bookshelf is just that. I have to pick. them. up. I have been reading digital books for so long that to physically turn a page seems foreign to me. The other drawback is that my reading time is usually the last hour before I fall asleep in bed and so far no one has figured out how to backlight physical books so I don't have to have the bedside table light on. Yes, there are lights to attach to books but to me they are cumbersome and don't hit the right reading spot. On top of that the "Ladies" book is so heavy I'll develop muscle cramps just propping it on a pillow. Definitely drawbacks, but I was determined to resist downloading them both.

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, an author from Trinidad, and awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, .  The book was a gift in 2008 from my lovely future DIL. She and my son were to be married in Tobago, a sister island of Trinidad and she thought this book would give me insight into the island culture. Despite the book making the trip to Tobago with me, I didn't crack the spine. I did have a lovely time in Tobago though. No reason to read about it, I'd experienced it.

But the book kept calling my name. I would see authors in the NY Times book review section mention it as a perfectly prosed book, a wonderful story, an inspiration to their writing endeavors. So I read it. It was dense and somewhat funny with great characters but I can honestly say I didn't enjoy it that much. On the flip side I have found myself mulling over the storyline ever since I finished it so maybe I liked it more than I thought. My biggest take away however was when I looked up reading guides online for Mr Biswas and found there was a musical play written in the 1950's based on the book. It never made it to the stage but the theme song from the musical was re-engineered and became the James Bond theme song. And my son has always been a big James Bond fan. So there you go.

The second book .....and Ladies of the Club is going to take some time.  I have started this book before and quickly realized I was going to need a storyline chart to keep track of all the characters. I found a sheet tucked in the pages with twelve characters names and brief descriptions of each I had started. That was great except I think the furtherest I read was page five. At a hefty (it weighs five pounds) one thousand one hundred and seventy six pages I am going to need several more tablet sheets to keep track of a lot more characters.

The other thing I'm going to need is some actual winter weather. Winter reading typically means sitting in front of the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, and watching snow falling outside. On second thought, stepping out on a balcony and settling into a lounge chair makes for some nice tropical winter reading.