30 Days to a Better Man, Day 27: start a book

Silly me. When I first read the title of today's challenge, I thought it meant "start writing a book." For two weeks I was all in a sweat to finish Novel #2 so I could start on Novel #4. (Novel #3 is half-written, but there ain't no way it would have been finished it in time.) I guess that means I'm a writer after all. It came as a shock when I actually clicked over to the AoM article and saw the truth: I just have to start reading a book.

All too easy!

I'm actually in the middle of three books right now. The first is Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Published in 2006, the book recounts the author's retracing of his epic train journey through Asia 33 years prior. I'm frantically trying to get done with the chapters about Vietnam so I can read about Theroux's train trip through Japan while I'm taking a train trip through Japan. This is Theroux's modus operandi, in fact. He buys books about the country he's in and reads them on the train. Sounds like a blast.

I'm still working my way through The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1. These are some of Hunter S. Thompson's most notorious and infamous stories, concerning the world-shaking events he covered in the sixties and seventies, articles he published in Rolling Stone and elsewhere: the killing of Rubén Salazar, Super Bowl VIII, the decadence of the Kentucky Derby, and others. Some of these events laid the groundwork for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (The book was inspired by two trips Thompson made to Las Vegas with Chicano lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta so they could talk privately about the Salazar case.) It's fascinating reading. The sixties and seventies are vivid and colorful — particularly through Thompson's chemical-laden vision — and the historical events which took place are still relevant today.

...but not that relevant. I'm honestly finding it difficult to get into the stories on a personal level. You had to be there, I imagine. "There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday," Robert Nathan said, and he was right. All this stuff went down over forty years ago now. Old news. I'll finish whatever story I'm reading and then lay the book aside.

Finally, I am slogging my way through Anna Karenina. I think I'm a few pages away from Part Three, but dang. This is a hefty book. And again, it's difficult to get into. One of my globe-trotting college buddies, whom I'll call Levi, has read Tolstoy extensively. He did War and Peace first. He called it a "590,000-word page-turner." The way he described it made it sound as though it was impossible to put down. He finished it in a ludicrously short time. Then he turned his attention to Anna Karenina. He, like me, could barely get through it. Compared to War and Peace, Levi said, Anna Karenina was little better than a soap opera.

I agree with that assessment. So far we've had Karenin and his philandering wife arguing about appearances, and the adulterous Vronsky losing a horse-race. Oh, and Kitty being neurotic. Nothing even halfway dramatic has happened, unless you count [SPOILER ALERT] Vronsky impregnating Anna and Levin having a fight with his brother Constantin. (That's another thing: I'm still trying to figure out where the hell Levin fits into this story.)

I don't even have the satisfaction of suspense anymore, either, thanks to Miss H. Wrongly assuming that I already knew how the story ended, my lovely fiancée accidentally let slip that Anna [SPOILER ALERT] throws herself under a speeding train and dies at the end. Thanks a heap, lady. Way to ruin the ending. I'll finish the story regardless, before the spring semester is half over.  

But in the meantime, my reading list is backing up. To ameliorate that problem, and fulfill the requirements of today's challenge, I am starting a new book. Coincidentally, it's the first book that I've ever read on an e-reader. Miss H bought a Nook last year in anticipation of traveling, but found it wasn't as functional as she'd hoped, so she bequeathed it to me. I haven't touched it in six months. I can't stand e-readers. I'd much rather have a nice book in my hands and a funky bookmark to stick in it. I'm the ostentatious type who likes to show people all the fancy books on my shelf, or advertise to the world what I'm reading when I'm on sitting on a park bench or a subway train. Reading e-books is just staring at a screen, and goodness knows I do enough of that already. (The results of yesterday's Marine Corps fitness test are proof of that.)

The book I chose is The Terror by Dan Simmons. It's been a while since I read anything without an ulterior motive: research, or getting caught up with the classics, or taking someone else's suggestion. I almost never pick something out and read it because the concept tickled my fancy in some vague, inchoate, intangible way. But when I do, it's always a blast. That's why I chose this book. I'm not going to describe it to you; you can read all about it here. This post's too long as it is. And by now you know me well enough to figure out why I picked something like this.

The novel will be my constant companion on the journey through Japan. One real book and one electronic book should keep me entertained on the Shinkansen ride from Hokkaido to Fukuoka, and assuage my conscience besides.

Tomorrow: read up on Day 28.