Twitterature - December 2013

Today I'm linking up to Modern Mrs. Darcy for Twitterature. 

When I was a bookstore manager I made it a point to hire readers.  I really thought (and still think) that you cannot do a great job selling something unless you are passionate about it.  While I was interviewing I usually skimmed through the "required" questions because I wanted to talk to the potential booksellers about, well, BOOKS.  I would always start out with a no-brainer - "Do you like to read?" and only a handful ever told me no.  They didn't get a call back, by the way.  They I would say "What are you reading now?" or "What have you read lately that you enjoyed?" and I got a wide range of answers.  Sometimes people would tell me of the last thing they were required to read in high school - 15 years ago.  Sometimes people would have a wide and varied list of classics, current bestsellers and everything in between.  I got a lot of great recommendations from people like that.  And then there were the ones who said "Oh I LOVE to read!  I read a LOT of magazines!"  I gave them credit for trying, but it just wasn't the same.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading magazines, by the way.  But if they couldn't roll at least a title or two off that they had read in the past month, I figured they weren't really book readers. 

This month, I have felt like a magazine-only reader.  I've started several books but none of them has really held my interest past the first chapter or two.  I've read a lot of magazines.  I've read a lot of blogs. I've read a lot of books with and to the boys.  I'm still reading, but I'm not really making any progress with books for ME.

I almost didn't link up this time, but the one - yes only one - book I managed to finish was so, so good I wanted to share it.

Beautiful story of the half American, half Chinese woman who makes her own way in early 20th century China. She fits nowhere, but despite being abandoned time and again manages to survive and even thrive. 

Make no mistake, this book is gritty and raw and even crude, but it is beautiful.  Amy Tan has such a gift with painting pictures with her words, and although I wasn't carried along by plot, I had a hard time putting this book down because the descriptions were all so vivid and amazing.

So there you have it - my one recommendation for the month.

What are you reading right now?

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