Am…musings

A coworker recently recommended The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I was so ready for a good book after reading two that I found mediocre – Julie and Julie and Queen of the Road. Both of those did come highly recommended from friends (and ironically are by authors who blogged about their adventures) so it might just be me.

The Secret Life of Bees is truly wonderful. As a fan of fiction, I think that might be why I loved it more than the other two non-fiction tomes I mentioned. But the real reason I love The Secret Life of Bees is because of the beautiful writing, which a non-fiction author can expertly tackle … Eat, Love, Pray (one of my top five books) is an excellent example.

The Secret Life of Bees sucked me in with the first paragraph, which ended with this descriptor that made me pause … “The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.”

The book is full of gorgeous writing like that. I also love that it addresses race relations. I even had to reach for something to bookmark this amazing line … “Up until then I’d thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan.” Amen.

My friend Jenny was gushing about a book. She admitted it was a teen romance, but she couldn’t stop saying how great it was. “Do you want to borrow it?” she excitedly asked. A teen romance … ummm. I read and enjoyed all the Harry Potter books, but a teen romance seemed a little pathetic. Ultimately, I justified it because it’s about vampires and … vampires are hot.

The book is Twilight. At the time I hadn’t heard of it, but with the movie coming out in a week, it’s everywhere and I’ve noticed the book in unexpected places, like Marshall’s, where I was returning some shoes Thursday.

I’m about halfway through. It’s well-written and very engaging and entertaining. Plus, it’s a quick read. I prefer my romances a little racier (a taste I developed as a teen when my mom let me read books I probably shouldn’t have … I was a voracious reader and when I’d exhausted the school lists, Shar would pass her trashy, sexy Danielle Steele novels along), but for a teen book Twilight is surprisingly romantic … and tales of forbidden love are always a little saucy. Not to mention, the vampire uncharacteristically doesn’t want to kill humans, instead he uses his superhuman skills to save the heroine’s life. A superhero with a neck fetish … it doesn’t get much hotttttter than that.

I feel a little lame re-reading books, but I was not inspired by my stack of mags a few nights ago. And because I read before bed I couldn’t run to the library to grab the political page-turner I’ve recently promised to peruse.

Eat, Love, Pray was handy and I loved it so much when I devoured it in early May that I decided it was worth the second look. I typically prefer fiction, but Elizabeth Gilbert is such an amazing and funny story teller, I almost forget this isn’t. She has a very dry and self-depreciating sense of humor that makes me giggle out loud (and turn a little pea green with envy at her easy writing style).

Last night it was this ditty where she talks about her gorgeous language partner in Italy …
Giovanni doesn’t always get my jokes. Humor is hard to catch in a second language … He said to me the other night, “When you are ironic, I am always behind you. I am slower. It is like you are the lightening and I am the thunder.”

And I thought, Yeah, baby! And you are the magnet and I am the steel! Bring to me your leather, take from me my lace!

Not quite as good as this line delivered by Rhett Butler in one of my favorite reads (that I admit I’ve plowed through a few times) …
“You need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”

but enjoyable nevertheless (or at least for me … maybe because Stevie and Don are singing about leather and lace on my iPod at this very moment … cheesy I know, but I love it!).