Should I hit the tsundoku pile or peruse online?????
I’m searching for my next read.
For bookworms, the ‘search’ for the next book is an adrenaline thing, isn’t it?
Immersing oneself in a great book is an experience that is ‘hard to describe‘. At least I think that it applies to most bookworms that experience ‘reader’s high’.
Reader’s high: when readers immerse themselves in a good book and feel a letdown when the book finishes.
They tend to seek books that can engage or create that reader’s high. Sounds almost biochemical. Maybe it is…who knows.
The flip side of experiencing ‘reader’s high’: reading books that just ‘don’t engage the reader in that way’.
Ever expect a great read and be ‘let down’ by a book that just doesn’t ‘grab you’?
I wrote ‘grab you‘ or ‘engage‘. I always hated to use the word ‘boring’ or ‘dull’ when describing a book. No book is boring; its ability to engage the reader and create an immersive experience is a chemistry issue between the reader and the narrative. One man’s boring is another man’s fascinating, right?
At least that is what I thought – until I saw Boucher’s portrait of Madame Pompadour. Since then, I gave in to the idea that a book can be boring or even dreadfully dull.
Take a look at the expression on Madame Pompadour’s face.
That isn’t the “I’m so moved by what I read” gaze. That is the “I have no idea what I just read. This book is dreadfully dull.” look. And obviously the ‘her mind was SO elsewhere’ look.
But given the scandals of the Rococo period she lived in, her position as a royal mistress, and the ‘Gavotte Overload’ that must have been exhausting, very few books could have competed with the juicy court intrigue that was part of her life.
Maybe a boring book was her remedy to zone out of the rocking scandals of the Rococo.
Books as Sedatives. Why not? Book Therapy? Absolutely.
Anyway. I stray…as usual.
I just wanted to share a blurb: I finished reading “What She Left Behind” in no time; it was a full-on binge-read… and now I’m going out on a perusal, a book hunt.
Once a bookworm, always a bookworm – but writing books literally kept me so busy that I had no time to engage in ‘real’ reading until just recently.
Obviously, mechanics have a lot to do with this.
There are only so many hours in a day – and writing takes up time. I have been writing nonstop for the past few years. My books? Most are here, safe and sound, and intentionally unpublished, except for a few. Long story – but that’s a pot of coffee for another time.
Now that I’ve wrapped up some writing projects, I am determined to make up for lost time and binge-read.
I just finished reading “What She Left Behind”. I binged that, I admit. And it really was worth it. The tale was terribly sad and tragic – but Wiseman’s writing made horrific tragedy so ‘digestible ‘ – keeping the reader engaged and wanting to read on. What is more horrific is the thought that things like this (no spoiler) really did take place in our society. This was set in the U.S. in the1920s.
Off to find my next read… (another binge-read, maybe?)…
Yup. I am having book cravings.
It’s like craving carbs.