Dragon Tattoo Hornet's Nest Playing with Fire

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Damn you Stieg Larson. I can't sleep. I can't get out of bed. I rearrange plans to spend covert hours huddled up with you and had a near fender-bender stuck in traffic on 101 yesterday trying to slip in a few paragraphs. Why I'm even typing right now I have no idea.

In the words of John Twist in Brokeback Mountain, "I can't quit you."

It's a frustrating, wonderful, maniacal thing to be so absorbed in a book that it consumes every free minute as you devour it, obsess over it; simultaneously wanting to race to the end while trying to savor each revealing detail, each sentence, each paragraph and page before the inevitable conclusion and the end of your beautiful literary affair.

Given my inept lack of recall, I can only remember a handful of books in recent memory that kept me up late into the morning, that I carted with me everywhere lest I found an extra 5 minutes in line at the grocery store, in traffic, in a bathroom.

The Glass Castle
The Magus
The Kite Runner
Good in Bed (NOTE: This is not a self-help book. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

And, yes, with my head held high, I will admit that the Twilight series consumed me. Although to be fair, I became adept at skimming past the ad nauseum descriptions of Bella's angst. I just needed to know how it all worked out with the werewolves and the vampires. Edwin and Jacob. Pressing questions. I had to know!

The earliest book I can recall obsessing over was Black Beauty - a memoir by a horse. The earliest "adult" book I think I devoured was Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity. We had a dozen or so Ludlums lining the bookshelves of our house and when I asked why he was so great I think my Dad handed me that one and said to give it a go. Hello spy, thriller, espionage. Goodbye horsies.

Books are wonderful, magical, brilliant things. And while I know I'll finish this 2nd Stieg book tonight, with the 3rd waiting longingly, patiently beside my bed, I know there's a distant empty feeling waiting at the conclusion of the trilogy. What will sate me next?

Where Men Win Glory?
The Tender Bar?
Losing Mum and Pop?

I'm open to suggestions.

Next week: Looking at my bookshelves, 5 books I would take with me on a deserted island if I could only take 5 and was going to be there for a year. Or the 5 magazine subscriptions I'd have delivered to my deserted island. Oooh, magazines. Now there's a love affair. Or if books are the love affair then perhaps magazines are pure lust. The covers that draw you in, the headlines that hint of things to come, the feel of the paper stock, fresh pages flipping by your fingers, colors, words, splashed across the pages. The hope that this issue will not let you down. Another topic for another time.

Comments

Andrea said…
totally hear you on the excitement of getting to the end but being bummed that the great book is over.
now when are you going to write your novel???
5:26 PM
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