Another GREAT Read...Finally

So - after thinking I never would find another book as good as the last, I did. The name? Still Alice. It's a book that I wouldn't expect to like had I just read an abstract. But that's not what happened.

This past summer while on the Cape, I found a cool little bookstore on Main Street. In it, I found the book. I'm afraid to admit - I do judge a book by its cover. Always do. And think I've admitted this on more than one occassion.

The particular cover I am speaking of is white and blue and has a simple blue butterfly. So I picked it up, flipped to page 22 and read, read a few endorsements, perused the back cover. Hmm. But ultimately put it back.

Then a few weeks later, the author of Still Alice was having a book talk at Highfield Hall. Mmmm, again I thought. Still no action.

Then, while back in Tampa, the book again crossed my mind - I saw it and purchased it, then recommended it to my book club - though no one seemed all that interested.

Just this past weekend I zipped right through it - too fast - but last night I began again. You see the story is told by an unreliable narrator - one that suffers from Alzheimer's - Early Onset Alzheimer's, a curse worse than cancer the narrator proclaims. I found myself enthralled in it all.

So tonight - instead of being sad that I have come to the end of yet another great read and now must face the night alone again - I will re-read! Something I have not yet been inspired to do - at least not once right after the first. (Re-reading 1st period, 2nd period, then again 4th period doesn't count when you're teaching Shakespeare in High School - though I do find often syntax inverted.)

Need a Good Read

I was on a roll there for a long while. Book after book I read - all the way through. But now I seem to be at a standstill. I have the same number of books littering my nightstand only the one on top is not the one I go to on a regular basis. I find my mind wandering. I'll walk to my office - stand before the open doors of my oversized book case and shake my head. Nothing.

Not a thing entices me.

So I go back to the pile and I shuffle.

One of my favorite and least favorite things at once is finding a book I so relate to that it envelopes me. By day three I've nearly devoured it. And within a week, I'm done. Sad. Alone. At the end. The end of another magnificient read. But what next? Reread? I rarely do - unless it's for school.

Then the search beings again. The search for the perfect read. Characters I relate to, a plot that inspires me, a cadence that hums to me.

It's a tall order - but eventually I do find it again. Until - another end.