Where is Your Bookmark? (06/11/2013)

Someone in one of my reading groups asked members to describe their ideal reading setting in such a way as to make us all feel like we were right there with the person, enjoying the moment too.  I placed myself at a mountain cabin on a summer morning, wrapped in my afghan with a book and a mug of hot chocolate, gently swinging on the porch swing.  There is a chill in the air, and it is raining, a morning rain that will soon let up and make way for a beautiful sunny day.  Just a little ways in the distance I can see the lake.  If you listen closely, you can hear a small animal scurrying up in the trees.  Birds twitter.  Leaves rustle.  My husband and daughter are still asleep and will not be up for another hour or so.  Tell me about your ideal reading place.  

My family celebrated my husband's birthday this past weekend.  Anjin and I enjoyed a date day on his actual birthday, seeing the new Star Trek movie after eating breakfast out.  We had cake later in the evening with Mouse who still prefers to eat with her fingers even with a fork in hand.  

The local library branch was open on Saturday, much to my glee (it's always been closed on Saturdays before).  After soccer and park time, we stopped in and Mouse and I settled onto a little person's couch to read.  Mouse brought over several books for us to read together and we stayed like that for who knows how long.  This may become our weekend routine, some quiet time after soccer or water play at the park.  I love the idea!

At the moment I am reading and enjoying two books.  I just started reading The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver for an upcoming book tour.  The book has been compared to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which I recently (and finally!) read.  I'm not far enough in to say whether it is true or not, but just from the description of the book, I can see why some might think so.  I am also making my way through World War Z by Max Brooks.  It's my lunch time reading book, and so my progress with it is slower than it might be otherwise.  I am really liking it though.  Yes, even though it's about zombies.

What are you reading right now?

Every Tuesday Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea hosts 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where  

participants share the first paragraph (or a few) of a 

book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.

I have only just begun reading Elizabeth L. Silver's The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, and I can already tell I am going to like this book.

In this world, you are either good or evil.  If not, then a court or a teacher or a parent is bound to tag your identity before you've had a chance to figure it out on your own.  The gray middle ground, that mucous thin terrain where most of life resides, is really only a temporary annex, like gestation or purgatory.  It shadows over everyone in its vacuous and insipid cape, flying across the sky, making smoke letters out of fears. You always know it's up there, but you never quite know how to get rid of it.  It waits for you, patiently, until the day it wraps you in its cyclone and you can no longer vacillate between black and white, artist or scientist, teacher or student.  It is this point at which you must choose one way of life or the other.  Victor or victim.  And when you do, the fear drips away as seamlessly as a river drains into an ocean.  For me, it happened on January 1, 2003.    

Would you keep reading?

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© 2013, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.