"I cannot live without books." -Thomas Jefferson

Lately, I've read some very good books. I like to read, finding it a nice hobby and a way to learn without sitting in a stuffy classroom. Usually, however, I always end up reading books that are depressing. I don't know why I do this to myself! I think I just like "real" situations. I crave memoirs and historical fiction/non-fiction. I eat up any fictional book that has characters with "real" problems. In the past five months, I have read a book about a lady who kills her elderly mother, a child soldier in Sierra Leone, the life of an Indian woman living on a reservation, a Holocaust victim and her family, a wallflower who was sexually molested, a family living in the slums during the industrial era, a modern black women who goes back in time to be a slave, two social commentaries on why the world is not succeeding, and a book titled "The Most Evil Men and Women in History." Meanwhile, my husband giggles to himself while he reads Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Of course, I like reading these kinds of books. Even the ones that are hard to swallow, because I feel like "wow, if I have a hard time reading this, think of how much harder it would be to live it." So I'm not banning myself from the selection of books I normally choose. I'm just saying it will be a while until I read a friend's suggested Thousand Splendid Suns, and instead I'll probably re-read Peter Pan for the millionth time, or All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Next movie night: 17 Again or Confessions of a Shop-a-holic.