Remember my Friend the Non-Reader?

In February of this year, I requested your help in coming up with book recommendations for a coworker who wanted to read at least two books this year. He was not a reader, not having a book in many years. He envied his daughter and I who could so easily lose ourselves in a book and wondered what it was about books that could draw us in so completely.

He started off with The Things by Carried by Tim O'Brien, a work of fiction with a bit of nonfiction mixed in for good measure about a company of soldiers during the Vietnam War. It is not a book I have read (I hope to next year as part of the Vietnam War Challenge), but it comes highly recommended, including by my dad. My coworker stretched out the reading of the book over several months. I did not want to be a pest, and so I kept my distance and only occasionally asked if he was enjoying it. He always said he was and sometimes would talk about a story he'd just finished. His final verdict: great. He was eager to try something else.

Keeping with the war theme, he next picked up Catch-22 by Joseph Teller, a classic novel I had read a couple of years ago. He plowed through it and loved every minute. He couldn't stop talking about how funny the novel was. Like my husband, his favorite character was Major Major.

My coworker's daughter was pleased to see her father reading and offered her own recommendation: Along Came a Spider by James Patterson, the first in the Alex Cross crime fiction series. He liked the short chapters and fast-pace of the novel. He was shocked when I told him how many books James Patterson had written. I hope to convince him to give Michael Connelly a try this next year.

The pressure from a fellow coworker and his own daughter got to be too much to bear, and last month he began reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. He finished it this past weekend. He was skeptical at first and while he hasn't made up his mind yet if he will continue with the series, he did like the book. He's not sure the fantasy realm is for him though.

He surpassed his goal of reading two books this year and read four. He read quite a variety too, wouldn't you say? He is quite proud of his accomplishment and I couldn't be more pleased. His favorite of the four was The Things They Carried. He is eager to read more crime fiction novels and to try nonfiction. You can bet I have a list ready! Between his daughter and I, I don't think he'll ever run out of book choices.

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