A Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk

When I’m on a solid reading jag, I go through a couple/few books a week.  Without event I’ll read works of lesser word count in a single sitting (The Road fell in to this category a couple nights ago.) And while I feel (and hopefully always will) that I have an infinite amount of catching-up to do, I’ve got some solid reading under my belt.

Well, one of a few uncharacteristically delightful conversations I had last night was with a voracious reader who said she read histories, biographys and such.  Inclined as I was to do so, I cast about in my head for something to recommend and came up completely blank.

It was the strangest thing.  For about a half hour I was sure it was the gin masking what I was looking for from my consciousness (as gin is wont to do.)  But I woke up this morning(ish) with it on my mind and I started going through book cases.

Nothing.

Not One Book.

I’ve got books on programming, computer science, buddhism, baking, volumes of sutras, self help, politics (less than you’d think), psychology, do-it-yourselfness, science fiction and fantasy, philosophy (east and west), logic, physics, math, writing, business, classic fiction, poetry, trading and short stories.

But not a single biography or history.

How very odd.

How very odd indeed.

I read Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” a couple nights ago. It had that wonderful, increasingly rare quality of leaving me wanting. It’s about a boy who’s raised in a graveyard by ghosts and… well… stuff ;).

It’s cute, short, and written for young readers.

Something neat happens to Gaiman’s imagination when he writes for children or young adults. The result is usually pared down to the bare essentials, a bit dreamier and more like something you’d find in a collection of 300 year old fables.

I highly recommend it.

I just had the most delightful pleasure of finishing Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age for a second time.

Only this time I read it on my Kindle.

I don’t usually mean to be THIS much of a prick.

But you either know why that’s deeply satisfying, funny, and more than a little creepy or ya don’t.

My memory of Stephenson’s writing (having only devoured a few of his works) was wrapped up entirely in his vivid imagination.  Unfortunately (in some regards) I’d forgotten entirely that his wordsmithing skills are rather considerable.

Of course now I’ll have to go back and read Snow Crash and I’ll probably make my way then to the Baroque Cycle (especially since carrying the damn things on the subway has ceased to be an issue.

very nice.