More rainy day reads 2012

WE’RE deprived of sunshine again. The weekend was glorious: I was able to do some much needed house cleaning – the basics, not just the intensive (extensive?) one just yet – and yes, that inevitable weekend task called laundry. The sun shone for most part of the day on Saturday, and again on Sunday…and it was just heavenly to be under sunlight for some time, away from the maddening rain.

But as I have mentioned last week, it’s more fun in the Philippines, even for tropical storms. Lady Helen this time.

So if you are left with nothing else to do at home, it’s an opportunity again to keep yourself warm under the sheets and check out a few choice reads from my (virtual) bookshelf. If you seek the warmth of ‘romance’, try David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary (2011). I love this book. (“Love” seems inadequate…) I started skimming through the first few pages of this book by way of a much-needed break from the migraine-inducing intensity of Mr. Christian Grey, and did not expect it to be THAT good. It’s a novel that does not seem like one, as Levithan presented the love story through dictionary entries. E.g. “misgivings, n. Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us. “There are things I miss,” you said. “But if I didn’t have you, I’d miss more.”; and “only, adj. That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? When you’re single, there’s the sadness and joy of only me. And when you are paired, there’s the sadness and joy of only you.” To borrow a popular expression these days: Lovet!!! I officially became a David Levithan fan and now have that resolve to read his other works.

If you are not thrilled by light reading and feel guilty reading on the couch, not comfy with having fun without exerting some pressure on your brain cells then go pick up that Dostoevsky book you have been meaning to finish for ages. The Brothers Karamazov? Crime and Punishment? Good luck with that. Or try Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco, 1988) – dubbed as “the thinking man’s Da Vinci Code” (according to Wikipedia).

I think it would also be nice to re-read something you have read when you were younger: best choice for myself would be One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967), which I haphazardly read when I was a college freshman, for a Hum 1 paper. I have no idea how that was possible (haphazard reading of all that Buendia family scandal), and to this day I still haven’t figured out how I got a good grade in that paper. Another choice would be The Bridges of Madison County which I read and fell in love with likewise in college. I wonder what its second reading would feel like. As Jessica Zafra said: “That’s the thing about a great book: every time you read it, it’s different, because you are different. You have changed since the last time you picked it up, things have happened to you…”

Or, since it’s too cold and gloomy, you may choose a light chick lit that will make you feel either giddy, or giggly. In that case have an Emily Giffin or a Sophie Kinsella by your bedside, within reach.

Keep warm, enjoy, get lost in your chosen book.

(www.serendipitycouch.com)