Last year in December, our book club chose to read "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier". It's the only time since our book club began that I chose not to finish the book. My heart couldn't handle reading a true story about boy soldiers in Africa and the horrors they experienced and continue to in the midst of the Christmas season. I put the book down, went to book club and thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.
You would think I would have learned from that experience. But, for some reason, all the fiction books remaining on my Fall Into Reading list are a little on the depressing side, not so suitable for holiday reading. I stayed up until 1:30am last night finishing "A Thousand Splendid Suns", an excellent tale about the history of Afghanistan, particularly in its oppression of women. Not light hearted fun reading, though. I cried my eyes out.
"Shanghai Girls" was not a lot better in that regard. And, I know from reading the first half of "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" that it is not a happy book. (And right now I'm not even intending to finish it before December 20th. That tragedy can wait until January).
Alas, I also have a fair amount of non-fiction left to read. I should have spread that out a little more. Next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment