An Amazing Read.

December 4 Book. What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

I started this year with a newfound interest in comic books and I read them obsessively. I couldn't get enough of them, I was the girl on the bus who read comics, balding, middle aged men would strike up conversations with me (ew), someone even proposed to me when I told him I was reading Swamp Thing, and I would get recommendations from people left and right. The thing I realized about comics is they tell really amazing stories that are surprisingly well written and I've always been interested in how a visual image can enhance the written word. As an English Major in college, I would often find inspiration from paintings or scenery or images for my writing, so comic books or graphic novels for adults touches on that interest.

So, after about 8 months of reading strictly comic books, I decided that I needed to read a real book and I actually found it difficult to shift back to the novel form. The book that I read was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon and it was a great segway since it was a book about the two title characters making their way into the comic industry during the 1940's.

Thanks amazon!

Once I got used to not having pictures to accompany my story, I got lost in the lyrical rhythm of Chabon's narrative. He is an amazing writer with a masterful grip on the English language with the ability to reach into his expansive bag of descriptive vocabulary to provide such a memorable reading experience that every sentence is a true gem. I absolutely loved it. I haven't bought copies for people, but I have gone to my favorite used bookstore and bought nearly all of Chabon's other titles because he is an amazing writer and I'm glad that I was introduced to his books this year.