I was actually pretty disappointed by this branch. It has only three bookcases of fiction! With one shelf dedicated completely to Michael Crichton. It made me miss the vast and glorious library of downtown SLC.
Nonetheless I made off with some wonderful, purely indulgent selections:
Eat, Pray, Love I have been meaning to read for a while now, I bought my mother the Spanish translation so we could read it together. I hope she is still game.
The Little Prince is another book I have been meaning to read for a while. They didn't have a copy of it in French, so I will just breeze through it in English. I am expecting to be delighted.
Flesh and Blood is a novel by Michael Cunningham. I really enjoy his quiet, introspective prose. It's about this family of characters that seem to touch on all aspects of Michael Cunningham's personality, so, like much of Michael's stuff, it seems to be a work of literary/intellectual masturbation.
My final book choice is Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. This is perhaps my favorite book from childhood. It still makes me laugh out loud, and even as a grown-up, I relate to the characters. I just wish they had better cover art.
Notice none of these books are nonfiction books designed to educate on a topic, in particular marketing, culture, symbology, religion, or art (the only books I have read for the past five years). The choices were pure, unadulterated literary indulgence. I wasn't even going to reach for books I "should" read, like a Tolstoy tome. Just escapist fun. And no screens!
After reading just a few pages of Beezus and Ramona in the check-out line, I knew I had to sit and enjoy a chapter or two of this delightful book. But the uncomfortably tiny, non-cushy chair zone that is the Venice library would not do, so I headed over to Lemonade--the trendy new eatery on Venice's Abbot Kinney. At Lemonade I settled in to enjoy Ramona's antics and some cucumber & mint lemonade. Very yummy. The cookie was rather "meh."
It was the perfect afternoon. I walked to my car with an extra skip in my step, eager to get home and curl up for an hour or two with a book, blithely trying to ignore the very grown-up buzz-kill that is Los Angeles traffic.
2 comments:
i have always, always despised the ramona cover art. sigh. and i am very jealous of your day. i've been in the library all summer and i finally have a few days until classes start on tuesday, and...it's pouring rain and 65 degrees. of course. much love!
Mmmmm - there is nothing like a good book, especially when it's pure indulgence! I love escaping into silly chick lit every so often instead of the heavy nonfiction I'm usually entrenched in. My guilty pleasure? The "Both Sides of Time" series by Caroline B. Cooney. I don't know what it is about them, but I can read those books over and over again! They're my favorite sick-day read.
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