Personal Stories

 Booking Through Thursday says Since it’s April Fool’s Day, I toyed with different ideas of questions for today. * Who’s your favorite “fool” of a character, and why? * What authors have fooled you? By a trick plot twist? By making you think their book was any good when it wasn’t? * What covers have fooled you into reading books you hated … even though the covers were wonderful? * What’s the best April Fool’s Day trick you’ve ever seen/heard about/done? Ultimately, I couldn’t pick … so choose the one you like best. Or answer all of them! Or make up your own. My husband, Luis, probably pulled the best April Fool's Day trick I know of.  When we first started dating, we worked in the same department.  He got a blank schedule from our supervisor and filled it in, putting everybody on the wrong shifts and making sure that people who really disliked each other were scheduled together.  To make matters worse, our supervisor had actually been making noises about shaking us up like that.  Anyway, Luis made copies and put them in a few of our work mailboxes.  When I saw mine, I fell apart!  "I can't work with those two!  I'll be fired, because I'll be telling them exactly how lazy they are!  Especially when I'm cranky at 6:00 in the morning.  What is she thinking?!?  She knows I don't work days!"  And on and on.  He didn't let me stew too long before he clued me in.  Boy, was I mad!  It was a great trick, but it was horrible for my blood pressure!  He didn't do it to very many of us, but I think we all felt the same way.  He was lucky he didn't get hurt that day!  What's the best April Fool's…

Suggested by Janet: I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’: “To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.” To what extent does this describe you? I can't say that I'm crazy about the wording of the quote because it makes readers sound like losers desperate to escape from their own lives. I'm very happy with my life, but it is nice to get out of my own head and into someone else's for a little while in the pages of a book. I can't actually know what it's like to live in Tudor England or what it's like to grow up on the streets or even to travel as much as I would like. Reading makes it possible for me to vicariously experience all of this and more. I know my own stories, and I'm generally happy to tell them to anyone who will listen. Reading lets me share in other people's stories.  I would say that it's curiosity and a healthy imagination that let's me know there's more to Life than my small part of it.  I want to find out how others live.  Even fictional characters have something to teach us if we just let them. What do you think?

You may have noticed–the Winter Olympics are going on. Is that affecting your reading time? Have you read any Olympics-themed books? What do you think about the Olympics in general? Here’s your chance to discuss! I am not a sports fan, but I do enjoy watching the Olympics. My husband and I are ready to visit Vancouver!   The scenery NBC keeps showing is just breath-taking.  I really enjoyed the opening ceremonies.  China will probably always stand out for their awesome show, but Canada did go a different direction and it was very well done.  And I really need to find k.d. lang's version of "Hallelujah."  It was much better than the version I have now.  She gave me goosebumps!  I was saddened by the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili and would like to say that my thoughts and prayers are with his family and teammates. What a terrible thing to happen at such a proud time in his life. I get most of my reading done during my downtime at work, so I can't say that watching the Olympics has cut into that. I have no idea how anyone is doing in the medal count, so I'll have to catch up while I'm off this weekend.  I don't recall ever reading an Olympic-themed book--unless you count Percy Jackson and the Olympians. ;-) Those don't really sound like something I would enjoy, but I'm very open to suggestions. Does anyone have any? Share your answers here and at Booking Through Thursday.