Reading

The highlight of almost any vacation for me (seriously) is getting a chance to get caught up on reading. This week was no exception. First, I finally finished Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End, which captured a lot of the funny quirks of life in the modern American workplace, but in the end was more than just a comic novel. (Coincidentally, after finishing the book I happened to read this tragicomic article from a recent Washington Post Magazine that covered much of the same ground.)

When I finished that, I moved onto something much more serious: Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Despite his being one of my favorite authors, and despite my having had the book since living in Basel, and despite having to miss the Oscar-winning film adaptation because I hate to see a movie before reading the book, I just hadn't been able to bring myself to read it. His novels tend to be extremely dark and unsparing, and sometimes the last image you want in your head before turning the light out isn't that of a psychopath who kills people with a pneumatic cattle gun (maybe that's just me...). But I finally got around to reading it, and I'm glad I did. It was as violent and intense as expected, but was also a real page-turner (most of the other novels of his that I've read are more contemplative and, at times, hard to follow). Now I can't wait to see the movie.

So, two thumbs up--both are highly recommended.