I just finished the most wonderful, amazing book that I have to tell the world about. But first, a few (actually, a lot more than a few) words about my reading habits.
I have always been a reader. My parents were readers, our house was filled with books and magazines, and I gave and received books as birthday and Christmas presents. Reading is life to me. Small wonder that at one time in my life, shortly after I was married and when I was still wondering what I wanted to be when I grew up (I was 25 at the time, sheesh), I considered opening a bookstore. I even worked in a bookstore for a few months. That didn't work out; not because I wasn't suited for books, but because I was way too introverted for retail. Years later, after I had been a CPA for years and years, I took a part-time job in the local teeny-tiny library here in Milltown during a career hiatus.
I started reading mysteries soon after graduating from the Bobbsey twins (remember them?). My mother was a mystery fan, so we had (almost literally) tons of paperbacks by Erle Stanley Gardner (her favorite) and Agatha Christie and others. The Perry Mason books never caught my fancy, but the Christies did. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot and Tommy and Tuppence have been my friends for 40-odd years. Over the years I read every one of Christie’s books, most of them multiple times, and expanded my horizons to Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James, Dorothy Sayers, Elmore Leonard, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, John Sandford, Tom Clancy, John le Carre, Lawrence Block, Susan Albert Wittig, Emma Lathem, and Lillian Jackson Braun, with occasional forays into Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Patricia Highsmith, Kathy Reichs, Dean Koontz, Donald Westlake, and many others whose names now escape me. I read every book that the authors in that first group wrote. As soon as I found one's latest work in paperback it came home with me to be devoured and live on my bookshelf. In our last house there was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in one room, too shallow for most hardcovers but perfect for mass-market paperbacks. It was filled to the brim for all the years we lived there.
Five or six years ago something happened. I wanted meatier books – mysteries suddenly weren't satisfying any more. It was an overnight turnaround, but I was working in the library at the time and so had easy access to thousands of books. In 2002 I started keeping a list of the books I read in order to summon up the title and author of a particular book when all could remember was a bit of the plot. Every year I start a new list, although in 2006 my efforts have been a bit spotty. Looking back over my lists I find that I consistently consume nearly 100 books every year. I include audio books; only unabridged versions are allowed into my Audible account. When I worked at the library I occasionally read young adult and even children's books; those were quick reads and padded my totals a bit during those years.
My forays into meatier books have been varied. Novels are my favorite. Fiction seems, in the hands of a good writer and to me at least, to be emotionally truer than non-fiction. But I've read/listened to biography, history, theory, biology, humor, travel, essays, and gardening. It's all good.
Back when I read mysteries and horror and suspense, I wondered how a person who preferred non-genre fiction would choose what to read. I could rely on the names of certain authors and confine myself to rather narrow sections of the bookstore. If I ventured into the wilds of fiction, what would be my guide? How would I choose among the millions of novels out there?
The answer to my quest came via the internet. Whenever I read a book review of a book that sounded intriguing, I opened another browser window/tab and went to our library consortium's OPAC (that's librarian for on-line public access catalog, I think), and requested the book. Although I live in a low-income, rural, rather remote area, the OPAC gives me almost immediate access to the contents of over 30 other libraries in n.w. Wisconsin. It is astonishing how rarely the title I seek is not owned by one of them. In that case I can search the combined catalog of nearly every public and academic library in Wisconsin and request my item. If I still can't find it and am determined that I absolutely positively must have it, I can ask my library system to get it for me from wherever it can be found, be that Minnesota or Australia. I've never gone to those lengths, but it is possible. Libraries and librarians are wonderful things; may they ever enjoy public support and generous funding.
Besides reading the NYTimes reviews of books, I also scrutinize the bibliographies of the books I read, read certain blogs and bbs that discuss books, and belong to 2 reading groups. All of these provide ideas for far more books than I can realistically read. Plus, I decided a while back that I was reading too much current stuff, that I needed to read other great books that had come before. How to choose? The list of Pulitzer Prize winners seemed a good place to start. To that I’ve added the NYTimes notable books of the years, the Man Booker winners, and works by authors who have won the Nobel. Older works, say 19th and early 20th century books, written in a dryer, wordier style are more easily enjoyed as audio books; Lord Jim, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Pride & Prejudice, and Jane Eyre have come to me in this format.
Now let us speak of the book I just finished, After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell. Like many others, by the time I picked it up at the library I had forgotten why I had requested it, who had recommended it, or any other details of why it was now in my hand. And like the other times, I started reading it and eventually it became clear to me. I won’t reveal that to you, though. Read it and be as delighted as I was at page 337.
The author chooses to tell the story in bits and pieces, skipping around in time between the stories of the protagonist, her mother, and her grandmother. I found this annoying in the extreme when I started, not least because I found it difficult to remember who was who and how she was related to that other one. For one thing, the main character’s name is Alice and her mother’s name is Ann; when you’re reading those two similar names can easily become blurred in your mind. But after a bit I discovered I had been totally absorbed for over 2 hours, couldn’t put the book down, didn’t want to go to sleep (it was 12:30, way past my bedtime), and was having no trouble with the characters any more.
I won’t spoil the story for you. Read the book, it’s wonderful, the characters are mostly fascinating, and… enjoy.
And thank you to the unknown blogger who originally recommended it. I am in your debt.
