View From The Glen

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Reader's Block Remedy

Shocking Admission: I have not read a complete novel for fun ALL SUMMER.

No - that's not true - I read one my mother-in-law lent me at the cottage because it was a library book and I had to finish it.

I've been slowly plodding through The Mists Of Avalon most of the past two months, without any real impetus to finish it. After all I've read it many times before. The first time I read this huge tome of a novel I stayed up all night locked into the story.

Friends recommend books and I think: That's on my shelf. Or Sounds good! Sometimes I even purchase them and they sit unread on a shelf that is too full already.

I made a list of books to re-read - books I know I have loved before. But I haven't got to them.

Heck, I saw the Giller Short List and recognized none of the books. I didn't even know Jane Urquhart had a new book out!

It's a sad, sad thing.

It's not that I haven't been reading. As a fiction editor, I've been reading lots of books. But picking up a new book and devouring it the way I always have in the past...it has evaded me of late.

Until today. Today I have found the remedy:
If a new Jamie Fraser book can't pull me out of my reading doldrums, then nothing can.

The Exile is the graphic novel version of Outlander, told from Jamie's perspective.

Graphic novel.

I think I can manage that.

I'm pretty sure I can manage anything with Jamie in it.

4 comments:

Leanne Haines said...

Are you even the tiniest bit worried that pictures of the Jamie of someone else's imagination won't live up to the REAL Jamie, the one in YOUR imagination? That's the problem I'd have with a graphic novel. I don't think I've actually ever read one. But that particular one would be tempting...

I'm appalled that I have actually read more than you this summer. Or more that you have "for pleasure", more accurately. I just finished "The Calling" by Inger Ash Wolfe for my book club, and it was very good. They're reading "Pillars of the Earth" next, which I've had on my shelf for a long time. I want to read it, but 1000 pages is a lot of time to invest in ONE book! Today I finished Jane Urquhart's bio of L.M. Montgomery. Very depressing! I think that may be the subject of tomorrow's post.

I actually do have the new Urquhart sitting on my bookshelf. You may have inspired me to pick it up! Or maybe "The Mists of Avalon". I'm not sure I ever actually finished it...

Glad you found something you can sink your teeth into. I look forward to your review!

Denise Nielsen said...

Nope. Not worried. I KNOW they won't live up to the real Jamie. And I'm ok with that.

BigLittleWolf said...

Oh, so long since I read a novel, too. Short stories? Yes. Poetry? Yes. Articles? Those, too.

Life has a way of disrupting the flow of possible reading (thus my consumption of shorter forms).

Gabaldon is a great one to dive into and lose yourself! I haven't read her in years, but devoured several of her books some years ago. It's like being immersed in some delicious elaborate meal. So bon appetit!

Finola said...

I have been in a reading slump lately too. I nned to get into something great soon!
I would love to hear more about being a fiction editor sometime. Sounds like a dream job!