So, I’ve just finished another of my Summer of No Substance books. It’s called (take a moment to prepare for the sheer ridiculousness of this title) “Dead Until Dark”. Yes, that’s right. It’s the first book in a series of books about vampires. Yes, vampires. It’s the series of books that the HBO show “True Blood” is based on. Amber got me the series for Christmas, but I had yet to read them.
And, of course, as will all the other fluff so far this year, I liked it. I mean, vampires, small towns, mystery deaths, cemeteries, fangs-what’s better than that? I’m hard pressed to come up with anything right now. I’m really starting to understand the benefit of seasonal reading. I have always seen Pride and Prejudice as a spring book and I read Winters Tale in the winter, but other than that, I have never read seasonally the way many people do. I think I finally get it. I mean, when it’s so humid here in the summer that I fear my hair will suffocate me in the night, I can see how I wouldn’t want to use up too much more energy with thinking about heavy literary topics.
I have found thus far in my reading of nothing of substance that there are some positives to this endeavor:
1. you can read one of these books in a day. if that.
2. i have yet to cry for any of these characters
3. i think i might be sharpening my csi: crime solving abilities as every one of the books i have read so far (even the childrens books) have involved some sort of murder/mystery.
4. now when the rest of the world talks about reading the DaVinci Code, I can join in this book conversation-this ability to communicate with the masses is useful in that i don’t seem to do a lot of things that the rest of the world does. i don’t do facebook, i don’t listen to the radio or watch mtv, i don’t watch american idol. There are people on the covers of magazines that i couldn’t pick out a line-up, let alone guess why they are famous. Point being, maybe having a little something mainstream to discuss isn’t so bad.
Yesterday I was watching this video about this old man who had contributed a lot to special needs children’s education in NYC and he said something that has gotten me to thinking. He said that he has always read everything he can get his hands on because that’s the best way to learn. And damnit, I agree with him. However, in my acquiescence to this point, I think I may have to stop being such a book snob. That’s a terrible thing to let go of and I think it will be difficult, but I’m going to try to broaden my reading horizons. I don’t think this will ever involve a lot of the overly popular books, but I will try not to judge a book before I have read it. I mean, it’s hardly fair. Books in and of themselves aren’t bad. And I certainly don’t want the repuation of being someone who would throw books into a fire if given the chance. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I can think of a great many I’d toss in if I had to make a list.
So you see, dear blog readers, even thought I didn’t plan on it and didn’t mean to, I think I have accidentally learned something from reading fluff.
I think this is a good lesson for us all. After all, what is my blog but pure fluff. There aren’t great discoveries made here or world problems solved and it’s hardly fantastic prose, but if you keep reading, I bet you’ll learn something. I mean, who knew about that guy with his 888 kids?
