Ta-da! (books)

I got a California license!  So now I have a library card!  Trust me, I was much more excited for the second one.  Here's the update on the book resolution:

7.  "Kitchen Table Wisdom" by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.  333 pages

     I read KTW while in line at the DMV.  It's a collection of true stories that draws on the concept of
     "kitchen table wisdom" - the tradition of shared experiences.  It is a bit of everything about how healing is
     not always done through medicine.

8.  "If Only it Were True" by Marc Levy  216 pages

      I think this is the book that the movie "Just Like Heaven" is based on.  The movie is ten times better.

9.  "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austin  235 pages

     I like Jane Austin books (except for "Mansfield Park").  It's terribly cliche, but I do.  Once you get past 
     the first 60 pages, this one is a winner.

10.  "Poseur" by Rachel Maude  289 pages

11.  "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien  246 pages

     For being about the soldiers in the Vietnam war, this book (of fiction) had a lot less violence and swearing
     than I was expecting. And I was glad.  There was definitely swearing and violence, but the book was
     mainly about the emotional and mental toll the war took on soldiers and how they coped.  It's a good
     book and I enjoyed it, but because of the subject and swearing I don't think I will read it again.  I have to
     share one excerpt that really made me think.  The main character goes back to Vietnam 20 years later to
     a field where he failed to save his best friend from dying during battle:

"This little field, I thought, had swallowed so much.  My best friend.  My pride.  My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage.  Still it was hard to find any real emotion.  It simply wasn't there.  After that long night in the rain, I'd seemed to grow cold inside, all the illusion gone, all the old ambition and hopes for myself sucked away into the muck.  Over the years, that coldness had never entirely disappeared.  There were times in my life when I couldn't feel much, not sadness or pity or passion, and somehow I blamed this place for what I had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been."

This paragraph is what makes me nervous when people I know think about joining the military*.  I'm scared this will happen to them.  Though they will mostly be the same person, they will be different.  Not just because of what they've seen and done but because they will have remnants of that coldness inside of them. 

* * * * * * *

Yes, I read fluffy books ("Poseur," "Harry Potter," etc.).  Here's the thing:  most grown up books are serious.  And I like them.  But sometimes I've had enough seriousness.  I just want a quick, fluffy, entertaining read.  I don't want to have to think deep about meaning or think about serious things.  I just want to have fun.  And thus I read chick lit and young adult fiction often.  I think it's a good balance to all the serious stuff.  You know what they say:  All work and no play...



* I think the military is honorable.  I am glad that we have people willing to fight for freedom.  I am grateful for and proud of these people.  I admire soldiers and their families.  I know the risks these people take.  They are big.  And scary.  And very real.