Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Cheating

At lunch time at work I used to sit with a bunch of women and we'd have a great time visiting but slowly one-by-one they all left the company so now I eat lunch alone. It's no big deal and I don't mind but an hour is a long time to fill with just lunch.

To solve my boredom problem I went and got a new library card and have really enjoyed my time reading at lunch but it often seems that when you solve one problems another comes along though.

I'm no longer bored at lunch but now I have to find books at the library, a daunting task. Usually I have at least one ore two specific books I'm interested in and then as filler I'll scan the shelves around that author and see what else jumps out at me. This plan usually works just fine but there's just one hang-up… I'll pick up a book that looks interesting and start to read the synopsis on the back. I get about half way through and then I feel guilty, like I’m cheating and spoiling the book so I stop reading, take the book home and then realize as I start that I have no idea what the book is about.

This method has resulted in me reading some really random books that I wouldn't normally have picked up, some have been great some have been incredibly stupid.

As an example, I'm currently working on The Olive Readers by Christine Aziz and although I'm enjoying it, it's not at all what I expected.

I need to somehow convince myself that it's okay to read the synopsis, they don't give away the book, really.
L

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Oh no, reading the synopsis is absolutely not cheating. They never give any spoilers away, and how else would you know what the book is about?

I would feel too stressed having no idea what I was reading...

Julie Lewis said...

Reading the last chapter first - that's cheating. Reading the synopsis - definitely not cheating. You should try reading some Alexander McCall Smith books. He's my favorite author right now.