Summer Reading: The best of all possible worlds?

This summer I decided to try and read one book a week. Not going so well. I mean, I've read five, but my book a week diet was silly, cause I've got work and other commitments and video games and sleep and sitting around wondering to myself "What should I do? I'm bored." and apparently no discipline.

Tsk tsk.

But I did knock down like, five in a month and a half. That's pretty good. Bright side, yeah? And I'm halfway done with American Gods by our friend Neil Gaiman. I'm three behind right now, but I'm catching up.

Whoo.

Lolita blew my mind. It is one of the saddest, most beautiful things I have ever read. Gave me chills. Made me think a lot about the nature of love and things like that.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was cute. Enjoyable and light, but as our friend Milan Kundera tells us, lightness isn't always for the best. Regardless though, I liked it. Very charming. The kid in it likes Sherlock Holmes and made me remember the good times I had with our friend Sir Arthur back in the day. Those stories gave me a taste for surprise endings.

Phantom Tollbooth gave me some memories back that I had lost a while ago. It was punny and about the importance of education and made me feel like a little kid.

Candide now, Candide was heavy, and Mr. Kundera warns about this too. Just a little adventure about this little guy and his adventures. With heavy philosophy and satire in the middle, like a literary jelly doughnut. Our friend Voltaire blasts the overly optimistic or cynical, and asks us all why we don't just cultivate our gardens.

And finally, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I read it while babysitting the greenroom in Sundin Music Hall and had to try so hard not to cry in front of the piano tuner. This Franco-Czech fellow starts out by letting us know he thinks Nietzsche got it wrong, and things only happen once. And I gotta apologize to my man Friedrich 'cause Kundera makes a whole lotta sense.

So anywho, I'm processing all these ideas and I couldn't help but wonder, once we've accepted that things only happen once, can we really just go and start gardening? Or must we busy ourselves with sowing all the wild oats we've missed along the way?

I've also been watching too much Sex and the City. I should stop doing that.