I am very slow with completing books as I am consumed with job hunting for a health lawyer position in MA. I thought it would be fun to track my reading progress each week. The Sunday Salon is an online reading group where all the participants set aside time to read every Sunday and blog about the experience. To learn more or to join, click on the picture above.'
I had a frustrating day with reading. A few years ago, I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have NEVER HATED A BOOK MORE! The book turned out to be incredibly divisive among my circle of friends and in the global reading community. Fast forward a few years to me trying to make friends as a newly married woman (without a job yet) in a new city. Turns out that it is tough to make friends when you do not have school or a job. I decided to join some book clubs to make friends. Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding one that I click with as much as I did the ones I was in before.
One of Partner's friends from Duke has a fiance who is a book club that meets in Boston. She told me that the group is made up of people our age and life stage. I was totally psyched about the group until I found out the selection. It is Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I almost cried. As if that was not bad enough, I was number 200 on the wait list at the library. I had to buy the book which was only available in HARDBACK. I have been trying not to buy books this year and I felt so annoyed that I had to drop $26.80 for a copy of her book. I kept hoping that it would not be so bad, but every time I read just a few sentences I want to puke. I read some more of the book this morning and I felt grouchy for the rest of the day.
I really hope that going through this horrible reading experience leads me to meet some interesting people in this new book club.
This week I also went to a meeting of the library book club. Usually, I find that entertaining and educational because the membership is retired teachers who take turns lecturing the rest of us about the book. It feels like I am in the middle of a literary play where the characters are using words instead of swords to win a debate. For the last meeting, we read Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship that Saved Two POWs in Vietnam. The discussion was awful and really upset me to the point where I thought that my head was going to explode. I am not sure if I am going to return to the group or not; if you are interested, you can read more of the gory details in my review.
While books are such a joy and refuge for me, I find myself really upset and charged up by them today and earlier this week. I hope that the coming week will be better. I feel like I need some form of literary aloe vera to calm myself. Does anyone have suggestions for what would bring me back to a happy reading place?