Day 13

Twenty minutes left in today to write yet another post about a book. Am I allowed to say that I'm wearing thin coming in to this next section of the list? I feel like I blog about books all the time; heck I even have an entire label for nothing but books. But alas, I'm bound by the rules I place upon myself, here goes.

A fiction book

I've pigeonholed myself into answering with one response for each of these 30-day entries. I'm going to respond in the spirit of the challenge but mix things up just a bit -- I'm going to choose a genre of fiction to discuss. Don't worry about pointing out my inability to stick-to-it in deviating from my own rules--no one is more broken up about it than I am.

My dad and I share quite a bit in common--the list is long enough and deserving of its own post (note to self: Father's Day in June), but in the interest of today's topic, we shall discuss books. I'm not quite sure how it got started, but we're avid readers of the paperback thriller. The kind you read once, enjoy, and throw or give away. Six bucks for a couple hundred page escape into a slice-em-dice-em cop series, lawyer battle, or renegade vigilante (Jack Reacher, I'm looking at you); we're not too picky.

Books of this type are perfect for travel; they can be consumed on a cross-country flight and then left on a seat in the terminal and then written off on your taxes as donations. My dad used to travel a lot for work and said his only free reading time was on a plane. I've found myself flying the friendly skies infinitely more in the last few years and I understand the allure of the sit, read, be done. Heavy on plot, thin on literary elements. Now, anytime we're in each other's town books are exchanged and it's not uncommon for us to have already read the offered book. I can rarely go to Target or Costco and find a book whose cover I don't recognize because I've already read the book, but whose plot I can seriously not remember.

I'm the most squeamy, scairdy-cat person in real life. You'd be appalled at the grisly books I read--true, some are more graphic than others, but I so enjoy them all. It's one of the few areas of my life I have a hard time explaining the delta.


So if you're looking for a recommendation for some easy, light (ha!) reading, check out Harlan Coben (our favorite and actually not graphic murder books, just suspense), Lee Child (I promise you'll love ex-MP Jack Reacher and want to read all the books about him), and if you really are feeling grisly, James Patterson.

Now you can be done reading about books. Orange you glad I didn't say Count of Monte Cristo? (100 pages to go! One Harlan Coben, one James Patterson, and "The Help" finished in the meantime.) My other genre of books are those eventually made in to movies--and yes, the book IS generally better than the movie, but sometimes the book isn't all that good to begin with. In case you were wondering. You know.