on books and big love

so back at the end of my pregnancy, i said something wishful about how maybe i'd catch up on my reading once i was nursing a baby full-time.

riiiight.

yes, i've got my hands full with two little ones, but i can't really make excuses. in the 2+ months that james has been on the planet, i only read two books, but i managed to watch 3 seasons of big love during dylan's naps.

cuz i'm a reader like that.

i know, i effused about the merits of below basic cable, but we traded up last summer when twenty bucks no longer seemed like such a steal for ten channels, and they offered 100+ for $30. somehow, we didn't know that we had on-demand cable, too, so i guess i was making up for lost time with my big love binge.

(big love: yeah, it's about polygamy, but it's also about family, faith, and community. and the new season starts sunday, and i'm all caught up!)

so back to the books...

i never quite got caught up from stalling out this summer in my book group reads, but i'm almost there. i'm skipping the one about the library cat, reading december's now, and hopefully, will finish january's by the end of the month.

here's what i did read:

beautiful boy is a poignant memoir about the tolls addiction takes on family, written by a father about his young meth-addicted son. it's a heartbreaking book examining one of the last taboos in our culture. no one likes to talk about addiction or the fact that recovery is often a lifelong journey full of relapses and painful setbacks. it provides no easy answers or happy endings but makes a good case for addiction being a disease. it's a good read for anyone coping with a loved one's addiction or looking to learn about that perspective.

the next book was the girl with the dragon tattoo, a real page-turner, that i even read aloud a bit to jim on our christmas travels. it interweaves the stories of a financial journalist who's been set up for libel, an elderly tycoon looking to solve the decades-old disappearance of his great-niece, and brillant but damaged female investigator.

it's actually written in swedish, and i don't know if there are several translations, but mine was definitely a british one, and on several occasions i had to stop and figure out what exactly was being described. there were a few dark, disturbing scenes, so i wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart, but i couldn't put it down.

here's to more books, less tv, but more big love in the new year:)