Thursday, 17 December 2009

The Two Rs


"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read".


If you know me at all, you know that I'm not exactly a lover of dogs..... to say the least. But I am a big lover of books. You're no better off, in many respects, loving books than you are loving men. They can both disappoint you and fail to meet your expectations, and seem full of promise at the start but fizzle out badly towards the end so that it hardly seems worth the bother of limping through to the final page.

Anyway I'm trying to write about reading, so let's come back to the point here.

One reason I originally looked into blogging was so that my "Virtual Book Group" could communicate about the books we were reading without sending 50 circular emails a day (my Inbox was collapsing under the strain). Now I'm a GoodReads junkie and the problem is solved.

Now, my reading choices are ecletic (if we're being pretentious) or to be more accurate, randomly voracious. Some books I have read for pleasure, others I've read for work or learning. Some I've enjoyed tremendously, others I've hated, some left me cold. I'll leave you to ask if you're interested. I think books are like food - junk, sandwiches and late night kebabs all have their place just as much as haute cuisine or a Nigella extravaganza. Unlike food, a book will not add to your waistline, and indeed I saw an article today which said that exciting and/or sexy books burn off around 900 calories due to the adrenaline which temporarily increases your metabolic rate. Excellent!

For my new diet, I am going to lie in bed reading Anita Blake books until I am a size 12. I imagine this will be no more unsuccessful than any of my previous diets. (Actually joking apart I am WAY too busy to be doing self-indulgent stuff like eating or sleeping, so all my clothes are too big for me now).

I would appreciate suggestions about what to read next - and whether it's in the bag-of-crisps or Michelin-star category. And obviously a few calorie burners too, to help me along.
I chose this photo because of my friend/writing coach who told me about Philip Pulllman's wise advice which I hadn't heard before. Almost as good as the quote at the start (Mark Twain - if you're interested).
"Read like a butterfly. Write like a bee".
Message received and understood. I think I have been getting these things the wrong way around.

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