Thursday, February 5, 2009

The One I Picked

It was a toss-up between Violette's Embrace and The Physics of Sunset. Why was I leaning to those two books out of the stack? Let me 'splain....

Violette's has a really cool photo on the cover of a woman who I presume is Violette. She's seated at a table outside of a coffee shop in a city that resembles Paris. It's just a silhouette. Just enough to spike some curiosity in the book. Who is she? What are her secrets? I want to do some snooping around....

Physics has a cool painting-like picture on the front cover of a couple lounging in chairs, smoking, eating (the man sits smoking while the woman is eating what looks like a chicken leg). There's a stack of books on the table behind them and utter chaos all around. Sounds weird but looks like a place that might be fun to be.

Who said you can't choose a book by its cover? I just did. So wrong, I know. I should be more open minded and less judgmental about what it looks like on the outside. But you know what? It felt good to judge the books that way. And I think I made the right decision. I started to read The Physics of Sunset. Couldn't pass that one up. The book is a large paperback. It feels good in my hands.

So far, I'm on chapter three. Didn't read any last night cause Top Chef was on. It's about a few different couples living in Berkeley, California in 1989. The big quake hits. Lives are affected. There's one woman who is from France and married to an American man. They have two kids and she's a bit unconventional- not really caring what anyone else thinks. Next is another couple (they're all neighbors) who have one kid and are incredibly unhappy. They remodel their kitchen instead of divorcing.... if that helps set the tone. She's a poet and likes to think a lot. And lastly, another couple- a little older than the other two. His father just dies and he's grasping the scope of losing a parent. The quake hits and he falls to his knees and starts crying. That's where I left off.

I like it so far.....

Favorite paragraph so far- one that I relate to as well:

"English was becoming ever more complex to Anna as she grew older. In the matter of a dash, for instance: how much pause might a dash be asked to carry? The dash was modern, also seemed to contain all of history. All her favorite writers seemed to balance there and so exist in the tentative."

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