This summer, I bought two books. One of them I bought from Amazon and had
delivered to my house. The other one I
bought for a $1.25 at the dollar store.
Guess which one I liked better?
The book I bought from Amazon was Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella (as in Sophie Can-sell-a lot of
books! Ha! Well, I thought it was funny). Anyway, I have normally been a fan of hers but
I couldn’t finish reading this one. It
seemed like it was all about whether or not you should have sex before you get
married. Not to be intensely snotty, but
I thought she wrote books for adults and haven’t adults already figured out
their answer to this question? So, I was
intensely bored and … I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for any of the
characters. Not a big deal. Now I have to go through the trouble of
pawning it before the Wee Book Inn stops accepting hardbacks.
The other book I bought at the dollar store. I picked it up and was immediately
inspired. It was by a lady named
Christina Spence (the happy slob (she’s from Calgary – woo!)) who wrote a book
on housekeeping called No Hassle
Housecleaning. I’ve been reading a
little from that book every day and my house has been looking better and better
for it. I mean, I have used all sorts of
methods to get my house clean and keep it clean, but she’s so optimistic and
cheery and her advice has really been working for me.
I think I should just forget about reading fiction. I know that’s hideously hypocritical coming
from a novelist who writes fiction, but I get so much more out of
non-fiction. L.M. Montgomery often
references people in her books who think fiction is a waste of time and they
are characters you are meant to like - like the hero (Barney Snaith … I love
Barney Snaith!), which shows I’m not barking mad. And there’s also Morton Harket (A-ha) who,
when asked what he listened to on the radio answered that he didn’t listen to
the radio, because ‘he needed that space for other thoughts.’ I could go on.
The thing is I do really well with do-it-yourself
books. I’ve had numerous success
stories, but I don’t have that kind of positive repercussion when I read a
novel. A lot of times when I read a
novel, I know where the writer is coming from.
I know how they did their research and where they got the information
they’re using. Often times, I make my
guesses and then read the acknowledgement section afterwards to have my
suspicions verified. I find authors very
transparent these days. And sometimes
I’m really sad about it. I used to read
all the time and I found it very exciting.
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1 comment:
Wah!
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