Read This: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I just finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera.

This is one of the better books I've read recently.

So good in fact, that I read it in two days, which is rare for me because I'm always reading more than one book at a time, putting one down in favor for the other, then getting bored and switching back. 

It can take weeks sometimes for me to finish a book.

But this one was read, cover to cover in no time flat.

I loved it.

I loved the womanizing but somehow equally sensitive and endearing doctor, Thomas. I loved the dedicated and enduring Tereza. I didn't care much for Sabina, the slutty artist, because I saw her as not only a ginormous slut, but also bordering on psychotic, not in the fun way, and she reminded me too much of this girl I was very best friends with, all through high school and for some years afterward, who did a lot of the same callous and uncaring things that Sabina did to men, just because she could, just because it satiated something in her at the time, just because she didn't care enough not to.

The chapters about her made me angry.

There were lines and phrases, sometimes entire paragraphs in this book that absolutely took my breath away.

Sometimes I'd be in the middle of a chapter that seems to be redundant and unnecessary, about to lose hope in the book, when all of a sudden it would finish off in one perfect, elegant and heartbreakingly beautiful line, and I'd be sucked right back in.

If you're a feminist, or have some serious anger toward men I wouldn't read this book, because you really have to work to see past Thomas' womanizing and bad behavior. You have to try really hard to see him objectively, and exactly how he is presented in the book without your idea of right and wrong getting in the way.

If you can do that, this one will break your heart, and then keep it forever.

2012 Photo Challenge Week Eleven: Read

Right now I'm re-reading "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb.

I think I've read this book 3 or 4 times now, and every couple years I find myself picking it back up again. I'm like that with my absolute favorite books. I've read White Oleander by Janet Fitch so many times I could probably recite certain chapter by heart. Back Roads by Tawnie Odelle was read and re-read and re-read again.

When a book truly moves me I can't resist slipping back into the wonderful world of that story just one more time. Rewatching that movie that a good book plays for you in your head. The move that only true book lovers can see, where all the characters look just right, and you can feel the words on the page, not just see them.

And you always put yourself in the book somewhere, don't you?

Try to find that one character that you can identify with one some level? That one who is like an external manifestation of some part of your personality, so well in fact that you start imagining them almost looking like you. And then it really is your story. Your world that you can go back and visit over and over again.

Books are just a magical thing, if you ask me.

A Winter Reading List

I love books.

I love the way the characters always jump off the page, and take on a whole life form in my mind. I can see what they look like, hear how they talk, and even imagine what they would wear or how their face would look during certain parts of a story.

I love the way books feel in my purse, all solid and heavy, a story waiting to unravel once I have a stolen quiet moment, or am unexpectedly delayed at the bank.

Winter is my favorite time for reading. Cold weather, occasionally some rain, and lots of thick blankets for cuddling up in set the perfect mood for getting lost in a good story all afternoon.

Here is a list of some of the books I hope to get to this winter:

After reading "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", I HAVE to read his other book.

If anyone would like to notify Santa of this book list, I would not complain at all.