Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Reading?

Too many books, too little time.

I sometimes feel as if I've read too many books recently.  Some of them are blurring together There are so many good books out there and I have the time.  

Let me share three with you.

I've blogged before that book reviews are not my strength.  They bring me back to nightmarish school days when I had to write (gulp) book reports.  What can I say?

There are several books that stand out, though, and I am nominating them for my personal "best of 2022" list.

1.  Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.  I've read three of her young adult books and this is the first of her adult books I've read.  It's a story of two gamers who meet as children and their subsequent life stories, together and apart. Zevin is an avid gamer and I am not.  But, from the very first sentence, I was drawn into the book.  It wasn't boring for a minute and several parts of it (no spoilers!) left me gutted - I cared about the two main characters and the other major characters so much.

2.  Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.  This is my third of her books I've read.  The first, Station Eleven (set in the aftermath of a flu that killed much of the population of Earth), I consider one of the best books I've ever read.  The second book, The Glass Hotel, was a quick DNF (did not finish) for me.  I just couldn't get into it, despite all the rave reviews.

Although it is connected to The Glass Hotel, you don't need to have read (or liked) The Glass Hotel. I'm so glad I went ahead and gave Sea a try.

Sea of Tranquility isn't a pandemic book like Station Eleven, but I don't think it could have been written without the COVID experience we all had, in our own way, back in 2020.

This book spans over 300 years, and weaves back and forth in time. Only great authors can pull something like this off, and Mandel is a great author.

3.  This final book was one I read for the first time several months ago.  It deserved a reread because it was one of those books I just couldn't fully absorb the first time around.  The fact that I read it as an e-book didn't help.  I've never gotten the hang of reading ebooks, especially on the platform the New York [City] public library uses. I don't fall into their worlds the same way as I do with a well written physical book.

There's just something special about physical books, and when I saw this final book at the local library, I immediately took it out.

How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, was a debut book and I never would have known it - the writing was that good.  Where do I even begin?

The body of a young girl who died about 30,000 years ago in what is now Siberia is found, uncovered thanks to global warming.  Along with the thawed body is a once dormant virus that infects the researchers investigating the find, and from there, it makes its way to the remainder of the world.

This plague isn't COVID, but is a virus unlike any we have experienced up to now.  It initially seems to strike children, and this virus causes organs to change into other organs.  Death is slow and extremely painful.  There is no cure.  Some lucky children can get organ transplants or get into experimental programs.  The death toll soars.

From this beginning, in various somewhat interconnected chapters introducing various characters and following some of them through time, the book explores themes such as how people adapt to the unthinkable. Culture changes, too.

What I also enjoyed was that a lot of the related stories took place in a non-Western culture.

Were there disappointing books?  Yes, several, and perhaps blogging about them will help me decide if they are worth another chance. (One I did finish; another one I am on the verge of abandoning midway through). Just not today.

Read any good books lately?