The Ups and Downs of my Reading Life

Well, my reading life has been a tad topsy-turvy of late!  After Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I got out To Kill a Mockingbird but I really wasn't in the mood to read it.  For some funny absurd reason, I've been craving books that are going to be really intriguing or suspensful or just science-fictiony, which is so unlike usual for me.  So, knowing well that F. Scott Fitzgerald always writes gorgeously, I detoured via his book The Last Tycoon.  I finished that, but was still not in the mood to read To Kill a Mockingbird.  So I looked for something by H. G. Wells, because he is the most famous classic science-fiction author.  I was hoping to find War of the Worlds, but I ended up only discovering The Invisible Man, which I suppose was no mean feat in itself as it was very translucent and elusive.  But I didn't feel like that.  So I detoured via Frankenstein - classic thriller. 

Well, I am still currently onboard the said divergence.  It's kind of funny how this mood has been carrying me up and down like a leaf on the breeze.  I did put a hold on War of the Worlds in the hope that I'll get to read it during the holidays, so that is quite exciting.  Not to mention I'm going to watch the movie of Hitchhiker's again with my brother this weekend, and I found the miniseries to watch, too.  Hmm.  This should be very interesting!

I suppose the real culprit, however, of my unusual moods and cravings is not that I'm pregnant, but rather that I spent much too much time with The Woman in White a while ago.  Two months reading the same long, monotonous book, however fulfilling it's conclusion was, has certainly left me utterly devoid of patience for slowness.  So I'm kind of taking a break from conventional classics. 

I think Hitchhiker's was exactly what I needed, but I enjoyed it so much that it has led me to thirst for books with either great humour or great suspense.  Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, I'm even tempted to go back and read Perelandra!  Gosh!  What a book that is! 

Frankenstein has kind of surprised me.  It's not nearly as fast as I assumed, and is considerably verbose.  However, there is a thread of intrigue travelling its length.  I thought I should share with you the first moment in which I really became truly fascinated!

One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. 

Chapter IV, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). 

A single sentence, but it does grab you by the collar, does it not?  I think perhaps I had better stop talking now, as I have too much to say and cannot possibly compile it intelligibly in this space.  Good night and take care.