I could tell you I don’t have a To Be Read pile, but that would be a big, fat lie. And I don’t want to lie here. I mean, we all smile and lie through our days, “Yes, I understand” when it’s all still fuzzy, “No, I don’t want that doughnut” when all you can think of is the frosting melting on your tongue, and the mother of all lies, “I’m fine,” when all you want to do is kick something.
But there shouldn’t be lies here. Part of this exercise is to get me writing daily again. (Let’s not talk about last week. It was a particularly depressing week at the day job, the ramifications of which will be felt for months to come.) But it’s also to figure out where I am, where I’m going, what I want to be when I grow up, etc., etc. and I can’t lie to myself or you guys about that.
So I have a very large To Be Read pile. In fact, it’s several piles spread here and there throughout the house. Everything from the Boy Scout Merit Badge Requirements Book to Fire in Fiction to It’s All Too Much. But if you take a look at those titles, you’ll notice a common theme: they’re all non-fiction.
This is bad. Really bad. Some of the books throughout the house have been on my list for close to a decade. Yeah, I get it. They’re probably never going to be read. But a girl can dream. Being a planner, I had a plan at one point. Ten pages of non-fiction a night and then I could read what I wanted. This worked for a while until I hit a very boring book, which killed the urge to read non-fiction for a while (and was summarily given away to the library).
The lack of fiction is because I don’t have any great new author suggestions coming in. But fate has a way of correcting for these issues. In my case, it came when I helped a technologically challenged friend hook her computer back up Friday night.
Her: “Hey, have you read Dorothea Benton Frank?”
Me: “Nope, never heard of her.”
Her: “She writes fiction that takes place in the south, like Pat Conroy. I’ve heard good things.”
Me: “Sounds good.”
That should have been the end of the story. But then on Saturday I was running an errand in the used book/DVD/music store. Yes, really. I was in the checkout line waiting for them to get my not-at-all-what-I-came-in-looking-for DVDs, when I glanced down at the package deals of select authors they had at the register. There’s Dorothea.
Since it was taking some time to find the DVDs, I picked up the 3-pack. They were tied with Christmas ribbon to keep anyone interested in back cover copy from getting a taste. I carefully worked the ribbon off a corner so I could pull the books out and take a look. Hooked by the end of the first cover. By the time the cashier came back – it might have been Sunday night – the ribbon was a thing of the past and I was reading the opening pages. Somehow this threw the cashier for a loop, but really, what did she expect me to do with a book? It’s not like I took the pricing sticker off of it. All the components of the package were right there.
So anyway, I’m trying out Dorothea (and will be sharing her with my friend). Who have you discovered lately?
