Thursday, September 13, 2007

This week's Booking Through Thursday meme is a good (bad?) one:

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?


Oh dear. Well, a confluence of events rather similar to this happened to me in March 2006 - we had to put my dear cat Vlad down, and then a week later my mom died unexpectedly. During that time, I didn't read much of anything, to be honest. I might have scanned the news here and there, but I was pretty raw and pretty full up with emotion, and couldn't really focus on any drama but my own.

However, after a few weeks passed I was able to read again and the first thing I picked up was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I only came to the books when the first movie came out (I know, I know - I was all about the "classics" growing up) but once I read them for the first time, they became my security blanket. I can drop into any part of the trilogy and be engrossed, and feel that great sense of aspiring to something bigger and better than yourself. After having read the trilogy so many times now, it's comforting and familiar.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:22 AM

    I can drop into any part of the trilogy and be engrossed, and feel that great sense of aspiring to something bigger and better than yourself.

    What a beautiful answer!

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  2. Great answer! But I really can't read if I'm truly seriously depressed. That's when my family knows there must be something wrong. I'm not reading!!

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  3. Heather: It's so easy for me to get sucked in, especially to Frodo and Eowyn's stories. And no matter how many times I read it, I always sob like a baby over the last line.

    Stephanie: I remember sitting on the airplane on the way down to where my mom had lived, and feeling like I was on another planet. The in-flight magazine might as well have been in Martian. I did a lot of looking out windows and not reading for many months.

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  4. I don't think many people could concentrate on reading in that circumstance.

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  5. Chris: You know, you strive to maintain normalcy in those situations, to keep your brain from hitting the road and driving out to Crazy Town. Reading = normal, but yeah, I guess most anyone in that situation would just give up too.

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