Books About UFOs
I’ll be honest; I’ve never been much of a reader. Sure, I started reading when I was relatively young, and ability has never been issue. It’s just that for whatever reason I’ve never been able to, or interested in, starting and finishing books that I did not have to read for some sort of assignment. Maybe it’s just an issue with a short attention span. I don’t know.
This being said, since arriving in Dublin, I have already finished three books that I brought with me. Yeah, I’ve had a little time on my hands over here, but DAMN! As pathetic as it may sound, those three books are probably more than I have read in the last few years. Yes, I am a tool.
So, first I read "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My friend Russ gave it to me years ago, and now I have just gotten around to reading it. Next I moved on to "The Van" by Roddy Doyle, a book I started roughly 11 years ago, but never finished.
I then went back and revisited a book I have always regarded as one of my favorites, Kurt Vonnegut’s "
Slaughterhouse-Five." I originally read it 12-13 years ago, and was amazed about how many details I remembered. One detail I did not remember – or at least just plain did not appreciate while reading it in high school - was the passage where Vonnegut talks a bit about the writing of the book, which he did while teaching at the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. Needless to say, now being directly tied to one of my favorite places on earth, this book is no longer “one of my favorites”, it’s #1 with a bullet!
If you have never read it, or don’t remember reading it, I highly recommend it. Fantastically funny satire that, despite being written 40 years ago, does not seem dated at all. Here’s a quote from the book that I laughed particularly loud at. When describing some old, yellowed books in the locker under the bed of his neighbor in the military hospital Vonnegut says, “those beloved, frumpish books gave off a smell that permeated the ward – like flannel pajamas that hadn’t been changed for a month, or like Irish stew.” Though not one of the funniest parts of the book, given my circumstances, the line really resonated in my mind.
That’s all for now, I need to get packing. I’m moving out this weekend. Woo-Hoo! I’ll try to post one more time before climbing back into the dark ages of no internet.
As I type: Listening to The Pixies “Death to the Pixies”