Stackin' up....

In 2009 I had a running sidebar on this blog where I kept a list of the books I had read and added to the list as I completed one. I intended to keep the list going for the entire year.

When I had reached 68 books and the year was not nearly over with, it occurred to me that this was becoming a source of pride, as though I was saying

Look how many books I have read! Aren't I special!!!

and so I deleted that portion of the sidebar and I stopped counting books.

I began 2010 reading at the same fast pace, but as Spring turned into Summer and we got caught up in all that was going on, about the only reading I did was when I read out loud to Richard and Nathaniel while we were on trips in the car, and by the end of year, while Nathaniel was in the nursing home.

And in 2011… well…  grief and the depression that goes with it dropped like shroud. The antidepressant drugs I took helped to keep me going, but even with them smoothing things out, I lost interest in doing many of the things that used to give me pleasure. I quit watching the few TV program I enjoyed. I pretty much lost interest in reading -- I couldn't concentrate on what I was reading even if I was in the mood -- except when Richard was driving us some place in the car. 

I still went to the thrift store and the used-book store and I bought books that looked interesting, but I didn’t actually read them. People who care about  me and know I love to read loaned me books to read. And I added them to the shelf and there they sat -- about 3 feet worth – collecting dust.

I am pleased that in the past couple of months the gray shroud has begun to lift, and I am once again enjoying a few TV programs and I have started reading again.

I finished the John Grisham book, an amazing collection of short stories … and the Alexander McCall Smith book, another installment in the delightful life of Isabel Dalhousie, and I started the Jennifer Finney Boylan book – a truly fascinating book -- and on a car trip earlier in the week, I started reading the first in Jim Lehrer’s One-Eyed Mack series to Richard.

Then on Thursday, I received this e-mail from Judy 

I just finished reading the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You will love it!!! That's an order. Truly you will love it.  You will cry and laugh out loud and not want it to end. 

And true to her word, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society did in fact find its way into my hand yesterday at aerobics class….

I started reading it last night, and I believe her assessment will be correct. I have already laughed out loud, enough so that Richard appeared in the door between the bedroom and the living room and wanted to know “what’s so funny?”