Weekly Reading with An Amnesiac {Before I Go to Sleep}

{Nov 28, 2011}

Weekly Reading

Phew - I made it through Thanksgiving. I'm not one to "do" big meals, but somehow, I had 4 visitors from Jamaica (my brother, sister in law & 2 of their friends) + our family of 4. But I handled it like a champ and cooked up a honey baked ham, roast pork (which the husband cooked), roast chicken (no turkey), macaroni n cheese (thanks sister-in-law - I'm going to be an auntie in about 7 months), green beans and salad ... and there's sill mad left-overs!

Weekly Reading with An Amnesiac {Before I Go to Sleep}

Last Week I Read
Before I Go to Sleep, S.J. Watson. Excellent book! Gripping story - Watson finessed the story so I wasn't thinking about how believable or not believable the theory was (waking up everyday not remembering the past), and I wasn't looking for holes. Instead he made me connect with the main character and want to follow her journey ... and I liked where it took me - plot twists and all.

Christine Lucas, a 47 year old woman who suffered a terrible accident twenty years ago that caused an anomaly with her memory - every morning she wakes up not knowing who she is. Some days she wakes thinking she is a little girl; other days she believes she is back in college, before her accident. She never remembers that the man laying beside her in bed is her husband, Ben. Each morning he must remind her who she is, where she is, how old she is, and what happened to her. Post-it notes and pictures cover her bathroom mirror as a reminder of her life.

Currently Reading
Zone One Outlaw Album

Zone One, Colson Whitehead (the last book on my 10 Books Published in 2011 On My Autumn Reading List).
In this wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a pandemic has devastated the planet. The plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead.

Beside My Bed. I'm starting to keep a book of short-story collections on my night-table to read a few stories before I go to sleep.
The Outlaw Album, Daniel Woodrell. Almost finished, and so far it's an excellent collection of short stories.
Desperation, both material and psychological, motivate the characters in these stories. A husband cruelly avenges the murder of his wife's pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches her breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behavior; an outsider's house is set on fire by an angry neighbor.

Next
The Magicians. Lev Grossman. The 1st book to be read from my November Library Loot (Part 1).
Quentin Coldwater is a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he's still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery.