A Book a Month

Ever since my earliest days of elementary school I have been a book worm.  In my youth I eagerly devoured entire books in one sitting,  a book a day.   In my adulthood though, reading books has become a sort of guilty indulgence to be taken in small doses.  It's too easy for me to get into my reading zone and neglect kids, housework, and cooking in favor of "just finishing this one more page".  As a result, for most of my adult life I have usually read a book or two a year, usually while on vacation and the rest of my reading would come in little 15 minute increments when I would read newspaper and magazine articles.   

A few years ago I attended an Enrichment meeting where the speaker taught about the joy of reading and how important it is to broaden our minds.  Although what she said wasn't necessarily earth shatteringly different, it made a deep impression on me.  I realized then that in fear of becoming a distracted mother, that I had completely neglected my deep-seated love for reading for years and I missed it terribly.  That's when I decided to join our ward's book group.

I soon found that a book a month was just about perfect for me.  I could get lost in my own world for a day or two while I read books I never would have picked out of my own accord.  In the last few years, I have read old classics, fun teen novels, and everything in between and my life has been richer for it.

At over 1000 pages with tiny typeset to boot, our January selection of, "Atlas Shrugged," by Ayn Rand was daunting to say the least.  

Instead of a couple days of being in another world, this one has taken an entire week and the state of my house reflects that fact with perfect clarity.  Although a somewhat depressing book, it held so many parallels to the political and economic woes of today, that I was enraptured.

As the societies of the world began to demonize and punish business owners and their wealth, the innovative and intelligent producers of the world simply went on strike refusing to be coerced by the government and the non-thinkers of the world.  Although fatalistic, I found it one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read.  I recognize that many of those same early signs are happening right here in our own society and I wonder if we are the frogs in a pot of slowly boiling water, not recognizing the warning signs all around us.  While I did not agree with her views on morality or religion, her views on politics,  economics, and government were eye-opening to me.

The fact that I just wrote that last paragraph about one of the ten longest novels of the English language is a testament to how far I've come in the last few years.  Not only was I not scared off by the length or subject matter, but I enjoyed it completely without guilt.  (Okay maybe there was that one time when I picked up Spencer 30 minutes late from lacrosse, so I could squeeze in a few more pages where I felt a *tad* guilty.)


Are you a read-all-at-once kind of person or are you better at breaking into bite-size chunks than I am?  What is your favorite novel? 

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