HEY THERE, FRIDAY: Book Club: Read, Reading, To-Read

I've noticed that lately, I enjoy books more when I skip the inside cover or reading the back-of-the-book summary. When I go in with zero expectations, I can take each page of the story as it comes, and decide whether or not I like the book as I read it, not beforehand based on assumptions.

My to-read list is miles long (and I just discovered an archived note in some stray journal with 20 more titles to read), but when I can sit down and settle into reading with Miss Murphy on my lap, the hours fly by and it's as though nothing else exists.

I'm not big on the whole, "My new year's resolution is to jog every day and never eat carbohydrates!" thing, because I hate running and love carbs, but I have a coworker who decided to make a 2014 resolution to read as many books as possible, and is already on book #3 this year.

Now that's a resolution I can get behind!

Read:

Had I sat and pored over every review, I may have never picked up this novel by Kate Atkinson, but Life After Life is now one of my newer recommendations to friends looking for something different to read. Opening with a quote by Nietzsche, Life After Life asks the question we've all pondered at one point in time, "If you could do it all over again, would you do it differently?"

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. ” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Reading:

Found as a recommendation on Goodreads, I don't know that I would have picked this book up instantly either, but I'm currently inhaling The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. I won't spoil the premise for you - just pick it up and see what you think, but don't tell me the ending.

To-Read:

Sitting on my shelf for literally weeks now is Tom Rachman's novel, The Imperfectionists.

From Goodreads: Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it—and themselves—afloat.

According to my sister, who knows good books, this is one I'll enjoy.