Thursday, October 03, 2013

I've been lost in the pages...

of some great reads these past few weeks. I finished Remarque's "Three Comrades" and lept into Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants"; it covers much of the same time frame as "All Things Quiet on the Western Front", "The Road Back" and "Three Comrades", but written across 5 families and countries. I finished it just after the sequel "Winter of the World" hit paperback and drank those thousand pages as well. Follett sucked me in a few years ago with "Night Over Water", a novel that takes place aboard a Pan Am flying boat, a plane I've always had a love affair with. I only wish one had survived the war. Then I ran across another he'd written, "Hornet Moth" that involved fleeing from the Nazi's in a biplane that shouldn't have stood a chance.

    On the heels of those, I read Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" because I found a copy my grandson had bought in a book sale a few years ago and figured I'd better read it while it was at the top of the shuffle.

    For a while I'd been reading many comments about "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak so I've spent the last few days devouring it, finishing it when I got up today. I probably should have known better since I also have been taking Prednizone most of the last couple of weeks to keep me from scratching my arm wrappings off, and today had started the pre-chemo steroids as well. My eyes have been a bit puffy this afternoon, lol.

   Now I'm trying to decide what to start tomorrow! I need to get away from the WWI and 2 for a bit, and have a couple of things I'd like to start, but it may rain tomorrow and don't want to take a chance on getting a few of them wet. So I may just put my Kindle in a freezer bag and take it to chemo tomorrow and read some short stories instead, then start something else on Saturday!

   I got the Kindle because I had thought I'd be in the hospital a lot more than I have been and it would be easier than trying to keep a stack of books around. I haven't read it a lot yet, more because I've been getting to the library while the weather is good, along with picking up a few books of my own through the summer as well. I have more than enough things on it to keep me busy as well! I've been amazed at how many complete volumes of classics can be picked up for a few dollars, or even for free!

    Tomorrow is my next round of chemo, and if I haven't lost count, I have two more after it, then another PET scan to see what's going on inside me. Sometime around Thanksgiving, perhaps I'll know something, which will also mark the anniversary of the beginning of all this. Hopefully I can prove the statistics on the fibrosis wrong and this doesn't mark a halfway or quarter point, but I try not to think about that too much!

    May the weeks be kind to each of you!

alan

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am impressed by all the reading you are doing. For some reason, I just can't seem to pick up a book anymore. I think maybe I'll try again in winter, during the long darker days. Kindles are pretty interesting. My mom has been enjoying hers quite a bit. Although she still prefers a real book in her hands.

Good luck with your next few rounds of chemo, alan.

Anji said...

Another one who's read The Book Thief! Looks like I'll have to get hold of a copy. MIL is letting me have as many books as I like - She can't see well enough to read; Unfortunately, they weigh too heavy for the plane. I'm enjoying Howard Spring at the moment and then it's back to Dom's collection of John Irving.

As always thoughts are beaming to wards you from out little piece of France. Hope the chemo goes as well as it can for you.

Calamity Jen said...

That's quite a reading list!

I am keeping my proverbial fingers crossed that you do indeed prove the stats wrong.

All the best.

Calamity