Thursday, November 12, 2009

Currently Reading - November 12, 2009

Status update. Still working my way through Last Night at Twisted River by John Irving. I am about 240 pages in, and enjoying it (which leaves me about 315 pages to go). As I have said before, I have always liked Irving's novels, but missed many of them in the "dark years" when I wasn't reading much but history.

When finishing a book and pondering what to start next, I admit to having a bit of a prejudice against big books. When looking at an Irving novel, or Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs, or Rushdie's Satanic Verses, or any of the other larger books I would like to read, I almost invariably end up saying to myself "I could read 2 or 3 shorter books in the time it would take me to finish that monster", and end up selecting something else. Which is true, but misses an important point. In reading, as in many other things in life, it is the journey that is important, not how many finish lines you can cross, nor how fast.

With that in mind, I picked up Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (this year's Man Booker prize winner) today at the bookstore, and plan to read it next. Compared to Last Night in Twisted River, it is a lightweight at only 500 or so pages.

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