Stress Reading
Wow, the day that Megan Frampton mentioned me, I got over 100 people at my blog. That's an astronomical record for a page where I'm normally talking to myself. She's got a regular party going on over there!
So, no, it is not Caring and Sharing Hour, but I have a family member going into the hospital next week for major surgery. Which means I will be spending a large amount of time in a hospital waiting room. Which means I need something to read, and it's serious if I pick the wrong thing.
This is what books are made for, what we readers have over all the non-readers. When you're in a hospital waiting room trying not to think about what's going on and how you feel about it, a book takes you right out of there and puts you somewhere else. You don't have to stare at the bad art on the walls or the other uncomfortable people there and you don't have to run out of small talk with your family members. You just dig in and... cease to exist for a while.
I love Stephen King but I can't bring him; too gross and scary for the hospital. A romance could work, but it would have to be a good one to make me feel all positive in that kind of situation; a lousy romance would just lose me on page two and leave me annoyed. I'm thinking of a sweeping historical. An Anya Seton book, maybe. I have a few of those, but I haven't read them yet. The other possibility is a mystery, something that occupies my mind with a whodunit.
Last time (there have been a few) I lucked out. I rifled through my bookshelf and found, of all things, an old yellow copy of Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier. I hadn't read it in years. It did the job perfectly. I read almost three-quarters of it that day, and it isn't a fast read. The last time I took a long train ride I took a book of Sherlock Holmes stories with me; the time just zipped past before I knew it. Maybe I'll dig it out again.
Thank dog I'm a reader. I'm never without at least one book on me at all times - no exceptions. I can't count the number of times I've found myself unexpectedly waiting for a delayed train, sitting in a waiting room of some kind, waiting for my companion to finish shopping for something that bores me, and hey - out comes the book. I'm always grateful I brought it.
Suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, I'll be digging through my bookshelf for ideas.
Abby
posted by Abby @ 5:08 PM
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4 Comments:
Anya Seton's Katherine is GREAT.
Bernard Cornwell is awesome, as meaty as it sounds like you'd like.
For mysteries, P.D. James is good, or a bit lighter, Rex Stout.
I hope everything goes okay, and let us know what you chose to read.
an entire day with family members confined into a tiny waiting room. If that were me, by the end of the day I'd be wishing I was the one one the operating table.
Megan, Katherine is in my TBR pile. I think I might try it. The other one I was thinking of, oddly, was Watership Down, but it's rather sad.
Anon, with a book you can easily avoid family members even if they're sitting next to you :)
Abby
Traveling's why I started reading ebooks. I read so quickly that a 2 hour trip uses up a book.
I used to take the train from CT to Washington DC regularly while my mother was sick. I started loading ebooks on my laptop and could take a huge boat load of books. Trains have outlets so that I didn't have to run on batteries.
The regular books and then the ebooks were lifesavers for me.
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