I promised myself I would write a blog post today so here I am at the kitchen table, lap top open and eagerly waiting, fingers poised to write something great.
And that was 20 minutes ago.
The only thing I’ve accomplished since then was a 15 minute scroll through my twitter feed and another 10 minutes catching up on Instagram with a few extra minutes thrown in for some random web surfing. I do that a lot. I could be productive if it weren’t for the countless distractions of the Internet.
Although truth be told, I’m just plain tired. Too late to bed last night, too early to rise this morning, and a lot of hustle and bustle in-between means my brain feels a bit like mush. But if I don’t blog today I will feel like an epic failure. A worthless bum who will never amount to anything, wracked with guilt (and in my family, we do guilt RIGHT), and on the brink of complete ruin and despair. Thus, here I sit, completing an obligatory blog post and staving off a morsel of guilt for the day.
I had intended to write about this fabulous list of books that apparently everyone should read by 30 (yes, I realize I’ve missed that boat), and even though I’d rather be sleeping, I’m going to take a stab at it.
The entire list can be found here.
I’m a fairly voracious reader, typically consuming one book a month, if not two or three, so I was surprised to discover that out of the 30 books, I had only read one – The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway.
The list includes such classic authors as Virginia Woolf and Tolstoy along with others that aren’t quite so well known.
The first book I tackled was “You Shall Know Our Velocity” by Dave Eggers. I picked it up a week ago and finished it in about five days. It was wonderful. Eggers doesn’t dilly dally around setting a scene and primly introducing characters, you’re pulled right into the deep end and promptly taken on a trip around the world. The book follows two friends still reeling in the aftermath of a close friend’s death. Will and Hand decide to go around the world in a week, giving away a sudden windfall of money Will comes into possession of, and detailing their (mis)adventures along the way. Although there is a lot of solemnity in the book, it also had me laughing out loud multiple times. I would highly recommend it and plan to pick up Egger’s other book as well (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius).
I hope every novel on the list is as scintillating but I have my doubts…Next up is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, which should also be pleasant reading. In fact, I may close this laptop and go read it now.
rdc17 