A Fresh Start

Hello and welcome to my blog. As far as an introduction, the description under the title pretty much sums it up. When I packed up my books on my last day in the dorms at undisclosed university, I thought that, if nothing else, the presence of books in my post-college apartment would at least make me appear smart. That's right. Maybe I hadn't read them all (my dad always teased me about the books with barely more than a crease in the spine), but at least they presented a guise of culture, taste, and sophistication. Of course there were some books that I read and loved dearly, but there were so many that I just never seemed to get the motivation to open during my college years (even if they were assigned reading).

And then I graduated. I graduated and I no longer had to read anything. I spent the summer traveling, and during a layover before a 6 hour flight to Seattle, I picked up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I'd like to think I attended some decent schools, but I had never been forced to read Betty Smith's work. So there, in the airport terminal at JFK, faced with a choice of Danielle Steele, Tom Clancy, or Betty Smith, I chose to read Betty Smith. And it was amazing. No longer was I frantically searching for traces of neoaestheticrealism. No longer was I seeking out supporting evidence for a thesis even I didn't believe in. No longer was the clock ticking as the deadline for a 12 page paper loomed near. Without the pressure, reading was great. And when that book was finished, I needed another (and another and another).

It grew like a drug habit (thank you, A Million Little Pieces) and by the time the summer was over and I had started at my new job, I had read some great books: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger, and I couldn't stop. I have an ok job, but it's nowhere near as mentally engaging as learning was, so, ironically, now I need my books. I need my books to meet new people and think new thoughts and see from new perspectives. The once uncreased spines of the untouched books are gradually being bent as their pages are turned for the first time.

In my new fervor for reading, many of my friends have asked me for recommendations or what I'm currently reading. So, in part, this blog is for them. It's for anyone who knows me (or doesn't know me) to check and see what books are good or what I'm up to. I invite anyone to read books with me or read other books or let me know their opinion - the comments section is just for that. On the other hand, this blog is for me to write thoughts and feelings (don't worry, not deep ones) down and track my progress as I wade through the ever-expanding list of books I want to read.

In terms of site navigation, it's pretty simple. On the right-hand side, I have (or will have) a few widgets you can browse: New York Times Book Review and Amazon Bestsellers are the most self-explanatory. The Shelfari application is amazing. You can set up your own profile (as I have done) which easily displays books you want to read, are reading, or have read and you can read what others are saying about them. My current bookshelf over to the side shows the books that are in the literary bullpen, so to speak (that's fancy talk for "those are the books stacked next to my bed"). Click on it, and you can see my entire shelf.

If you want to see what I'm currently reading, look at my daily posts. Tomorrow I'll begin writing about what I'm reading at this moment: The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson.