All of this being said, I am taking the opportunity of a new year and a fresh start to make a commitment, and I'm going to go ahead and call it a new years resolution. I resolve to read (this means complete) at least 50 books in 2013. Additionally I intend to write something about each of them. I haven't decided how much or little I want to write, I just know that writing is probably the thing that I miss most since graduating. I have some pretty heavy internal debate going on inside my head about whether I should include the audiobooks I listen to in this goal. I have decided that they do not count towards my 50 books but I will write about them. This challenge is to force me back into the actual act of reading.
The first book I have read is Judging a Book by Its Lover by Lauren Leto.
This was quite possibly the perfect book with which to start. I think that Lauren Leto is the perfect example of what I believe about reading: She dropped out of law school to start "Texts from Last Night", she acknowledges in the first chapter that she has read all of the Twilight books and is known to read anything Evanovich on an airplane. I feel that when someone has read what I like to call "brain candy," the content in our society that is scorn-worthy, they have earned the right to judge it. I mean really, how many of you who scorn any of the Twilight books have actually picked them up? Does the fact that others hold this book in contempt really allow you to judge it? How can you sit in judgement of something you don't know? Because of this, I can tolerate --> — though disagree with --> — Leto's contempt for my two favorite authors. In return I am comfortable in my own bit of contempt for all things Russian literature.
I enjoyed so much about this book, it is snarky, personal, and relatable. In between personal essays on what it is for her to be a reader, she has inserted chapters such as "Rules for Public Reading," "Your Moveable Feast" (a collection of hypothetical dinners with great literary couples), "Stereotyping People by Favorite Author" -->(I am a kid who doesn't fit in - Salinger, and a woman whose favorite color is hunter green - Atwood), "How to Fake It" (a great real life Cliffs Notes- what Cliffs Notes ever told you to not to talk about Catcher in the Rye with a true Salinger fan?), and "Twitter-Sized Reviews of Memoirs" ("Never mind." - A Million Little Pieces).
My three favorite quotes from the book --> — there were many --> — are these:
"My solution for all the young writers being discouraged to the point of giving up is simple.
Murder the others.
Poison their overpriced vodka and soda while they're in the bathroom. Shoot them in the face when they're asleep.
I'm talking about the people who read only to criticize and who talk only to condescend."
"A book read without deliberate consideration is a waste for both the author and the reader. Talking with others about our experience with the book is our way of celebrating the art. That we were pulled into the same existence and we emerged emotionally charged but each struck in a unique way is the beauty of reading."
"Great covers are not a graphical summary of the story; they're the artist's comment on the message, their interpretation of the images inside."
