I Carried Around A Book Today

 

I've been a reader most of my life.  Granted, I didn't learn til first grade but after that a book has been a constant.  Growing up in my small hometown, there was always a library & we got to go there but my biggest source of books was the little rounder at the grocery store.  There was no organization. I don't think the store placed an order with titles...probably just for 2 boxes of books or something.  They weren't best sellers...just some original pulp fiction & I loved them.  I didn't have money but mom bought me probably 2 a month.  And then of course was the school library where I went through periods of new stuff & classics & the racy stuff in the restricted section.  Read them all.  I had high hopes for the Tech library but it was just mostly research stuff.  What a disappointment.  So I bought books from Walden Books & some other long gone bookstore at the mall.  

Now I don't buy books very often.  Mostly I go to the library to get a book I can hold in my hand or I use my Ipad to Ebook.  Books are expensive!!  I did buy one a few months ago because I was in Barnes & Noble getting a birthday present & it was on display at the counter.  And I loved it...I liked the feel of it in my hands & watching my progress with my bookmark & even the smell of it.  But I went back to the library.

My co-worker Katie gave me a book called 'Where The Crawdads Sing' for Christmas & I've loved reading a few bits at a time & toting it around to read where I can.  I had it in my purse today as I waited for my friend Deb to get to lunch. It's become my teddy bear.  Of course I can do same with my Ipad but right now, this book is what I need. 

I've actually read about 1/3 of the book & it's pretty good & I may review it later.  It will at least make my 2023 book list when I finish.  For now, I'll just carry it around.  And maybe go to the library tomorrow afternoon & sit in a comfortable chair & read it.  It's all part of a book addiction.

Added Jan 19,2023:

I finished the book today & I take back my "pretty good" from before.   It really wasn't.  

'Where the Crawdads Sing' is the story of Kya, a girl in the North Carolina swamps whose parents abandoned her as a child & basically she raised herself.  She's uneducated & amazingly ends up writing books about the marsh & the flowers & animals.  She's unlikable & selfish & untrusting.  She has 2 men falling in love with her for some reason.  And they can't take her out in public.  One of them has a great observation  after he abandoned her too:  I can have Kya or I can have everythig else.  (College,family,life).  

The 2nd man she falls in love with is a sweet talking former high school quarterback who makes her all kinds of promises he doesn't keep.  And he ends up dead.  And Kya is tried & acquitted for his murder & we find out on last page, she did it.

The book has too much background, James Michner travelogue crap.  Too many descriptions of fish & bugs & mushrooms.  Could have knocked 150 pages off book.  And by 100 pages til the end I stopped reading & went to ending because I'd had enough.

This was a big old book club book & I baffled as to why.   One review on Amazon said something like he hoped the author had made enough money on this book so she'never feel like she had to write anything again.  It was painful.