UnBooked

I have nothing to read. I have opened my book shelves and peered into their musty darkness, opened the bedside tables and rummaged around to see if a book was hiding itself. I have logged on to the Public Library Catalog and found nothing. Nothing at all. The minute BigGeek reads this, two words in font size 36 and font-weight bold are going to come to his mind. Liar’s Poker. He has been badgering me to read it - he finished it while convalescing – and I haven’t – haven’t convalesced and haven’t read it. Do ask me why. Because the reasons are quite complex and well, somewhat weird.

I crave books the way someone craves food. Remember that Tuesday when you wanted to eat the spicy Green Curry at that little hole in wall Thai restaurant? No other Green Curry quite does it then. Or the time when you simply had to have those itsy bitsy truffles at the fancy grocery store? Or the time, when you taste buds craved *something* but none of the familiar foods even came close to describing what you really wanted to eat? Ever felt that way? I feel the same way about books. If I want to read some thing like H2G2, P.G.Wodehouse won’t cut it. Right now, I don’t feel like reading Liar’s Poker. Or Dune. Or any Larry Niven. Or… Many weeks ago, I started to read Naipual’s Bend in the River, but got sidetracked and the book has since been cast away. And I have a terrible record to trying to read cast-away books. There is Swann’s Way lying somewhere – the last I saw it was when Chip would open it everyday and try to read from it and the hounded me to tell him the story.

But I don’t feel like Naipual or Proust. All I want to read is something that is pleasant, a little amusing, no make that very amusing, laugh out loud insightful, nice prose, not very long, but not a novella or a bunch of short stories – they would just seem very unsatisfying right about now. Something with a touch of sci-fi or exotic history or both. Something a little familiar, but obviously something new. Definitely fiction, hopefully literary. I want the print version of going to a familiar and much loved restaurant and finding a new dish on the menu that sounds interesting and when you taste it, you go – “Ahhhh. This is heaven.”

So, tell me what are you reading? I want to borrow it. That is if it fits into the not-so-fine-print stated above!