book club

When I was little, I used to stay up late and read books with a flashlight under the covers. I was so convinced that I was completely fooling my parents into thinking I was asleep; of course, they were a little wiser than that, and I was routinely busted. "You'll ruin your eyesight!" was the chastisement I frequently received, and let me tell you, that prophecy came true. I have terrible eyesight. But, now at the age of 21, I'm up to my old tricks again. I'm reading books with all my spare time: while waiting for assignments at work, while on tro-tros and field trip buses, and, natch, by flashlight in the minutes before bed. Logan and Jessica are two of my closest friends in Ghana, and our terrific threesome has bonded together over a ritual we've dubbed "book club." Yes, I know, we're not the first group to pioneer such a concept, but our book club is different ... nontraditional, you could say. First off, we don't hold regularly scheduled meetings. Rather, we meet when the mood suits, such as on lazy weekend days, slow weekday nights, in field trip hotel rooms or while waiting for the rain to pass at the swimming pool. There's lots of free time in Ghana, but it comes at unpredictable times and in unpredictable amounts. Furthermore, we don't even all read the same book at once. This probably sounds blasphemous to orthodox followers of book club etiquette, but in most cases, there's only one copy of a book floating around, which makes such practice utterly impossible. So, we read whatever we feel like reading, and recommend good books to others. And our book club thrives because we're all serendipitously in synch; everybody usually finishes their tome within the same 24-hour period, and then we all swap. The last person to read a book usually speeds through it the fastest so that they can finally join our "analytical" conversations, which normally compare such critical thoughts as "Who else cried at the end of 'Marley and Me?'" This is the first time in a long time that I've had free time for reading, and I'm savoring it. The journalist in me is loving it the most; it's amazing to see how other professional writers have strung their words together, coming up with imaginative metaphors, painting vivid images and employing descriptors I'd have never thought to use. I think that reading all of this great writing sows the seeds to help me become a better writer. At least, I hope.

Books I've Read:
-Love in the Time of Cholera (in progress)
-The Blind Side
-The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
-Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man
-Marley and Me
-two volumes of Salinger short stories
-The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
-Special Topics in Calamity Physics
-Eat, Pray, Love
-The Other Boleyn Girl