Reading List

What I'm reading right now: A Severe Mercy

True, I've read this book no less than five times, and I realize that I am 'preaching to the choir' in my rave reviews, as it's listed as a favorite book of almost all my friends. It's been more than two years since I've last read A Severe Mercy, and I can't believe how much I gain every time I read it.

This memoir brings me to a place so rare. It makes me long for Oxford, to study as a profession, to sail the obscure keys, and to realize truths I'd never looked at. The love in this book is incomparable to any fiction I've read. The love story in the book is true. It's inspiring and challenging. The acknowledgement of the beautiful, and the search for answers is a personal challenge for me to do the same in my life. This book brings me to a time I wished I lived in. Class, etiquette, poetry, wine, and with the exception of a constant listening of classical records, totally devoid of media that lessens creativity and prevents so many experiences.

Another memoir I saw when I was in the Pittsburgh airport, flying alone back to Minnesota during a break for school. Stopping in print shop full of periodicals and bestsellers a certain book stood out to me. I had never heard of it, or the author, but my temptation to buy the overpriced airport book was strong. I resisted, and instead decided to research the author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A Pulitzer Prize winner. The library had two of his books Love in the Time of Cholera and A Hundred Years of Solitude. I decided on the first and fell in love. I had never read anything within the Hispanic Experience, and I was blown away. Everything about this book felt real to me. The author uses "magical realism" to the fullest extent, and nothing like the ghosts in Hamlet, these fantasies were as real as the characters and left no doubt of their truth. I enjoyed Solitude equally, the Pulitzer winner, although a challenge to read in that I had to concentrate on the characters and story line. It seems that all the male characters have the same name, as do the female characters, so I read the book with a genealogy chart in front of me the entire time. A person with more advanced comprehension wouldn't have to do that, but I needed to.

I see that Cholera is now a movie. I was first very excited. I even made a point to record the "making of" special on HBO. Movie Trailers are intended to make any movie look good, but at first glance this one doesn't. I may see it, but I'd hate for the beautiful story I have imagined in my head to be polluted with a poorly done film. We'll see.