12.13.2010

The GGA Project -- Day #2 "Chuck"

Lately I'm having a terrible time finding (making) time to read.  Facebook time: no problem.  Reading time: problem.  I have to say a big part of this is that I don't have a good reading spot these days.  I used to always read while lying down in bed, but now that my baby boy and I share a room, I am reluctant to risk waking him with the reading light, and I just can't seem to get comfortable anywhere else.


The compromise I've made is to listen to books on CD during my long hours spent commuting to and from work and driving the 20 mile minimum I travel at least 3 times a week in order to visit any of my friends.  I'd never listened to a book before about 3 months ago, and I'm liking the new discovery.


Sooooo, I went to the library this afternoon with every intention of finding a sci-fi book on CD to check out.  This fit squarely (yes, the word choice is significant) into my try new things project as I've resisted sci-fi for years, despite the strong-armed encouragement of a host of friends and former coworkers (Kenneth).  Unfortunately (fortunately), there were only a few options, none of them viable because they were parts of series where the 1st installment was not in stock.  Anyway, I thought checking one of these out would be unfair anyway because their almost guaranteed suckiness in the grand scheme of even the sci-fi genre would have been too convenient an excuse for me to poo poo the whole movement for all time.  I thought that if I'm to read/listen to a sci-fi book, I should at least give it a fair shake and find a decent representation of the genre.


Plan B jumped off the shelf:  Today's New Activity: Chuck Palahniuk.  Diary, specifically.



I've never read a novel by Palahniuk (best known for Fight Club).  To be honest, I'm kind of scared of him for some vague reason.  My friend Jesse is a big fan (or maybe just a fan?), and maybe he told me something once upon a time...the overall sense is that perhaps Palahniuk likes to flirt with the grotesque...along those lines anyway.  Also, I feel like he's a real guy's kind of author.  The only people I've ever known to be fans were young men or else girls who are into ultra guy type things.  Anyway that assumption and speculation is about to be put to rest because I'll be listening to it come tomorrow morning.


I think I'll save the sci-fi adventure for month 10 or 11 of this project.  It definitely feels like a kind of final frontier for me.  And by then my mind will ideally be more open to new ideas and forays into imaginary universes.  Really.  I look forward to the day I can embrace that prospect with open arms :)

2 comments:

  1. awesome! i love this project. i want to hear all about your new reading adventures! i really have to read more. i'm always embarrassed to post on fb those "how many of these 100 greatest books of all time have you read?" and i'm always around the average to below-average mark! i used to read a lot. but now i make stuff instead. so i think that's ok for now. ;) i loved scifi when i was a kid. madeline l'engle's "a wrinkle in time" was a favorite of mine.

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  2. Books on CD are a lifesaver for long trips and boring commutes, and so many are read SO well! Now, if you're looking to try something really grotesque, I'd suggest you go for watching "Dexter." I mean, if you haven't already. I was goaded into it and after getting past all the gore, with fingers plastered over my eyes about 23.7% of the time, I fell IN LOVE. Just sayin'.

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