The wonderful flurry of reading I experienced in May has trickled off. For the last week or so, I’ve been in a reading lull.
It’s not that I’ve been too busy with other things. Nor am I waiting on the next books on the list to come in at the library, or anything like that. And though I have been writing again (finally! hooray!), it’s not that I can’t read because I don’t want to lose the fictional world I’m writing in. (Though I am beginning to get to this place…)
No, it’s merely that I’m in a reading funk, the literary equivalent of a bad mood. I haven’t been able to get in to any of the books I’ve tried these past days, and so I’ve wound up casting them aside. In some cases, it’s been the book’s fault. But most of my reading problems recently have, I think, been just me.
What to do when this happens? In the past I’ve occasionally been able to snap myself out of it by re-reading a favorite. Re-reading hasn’t worked this time, though – I wind up casting even my favorites aside.
So I’ve been reading cookbooks. Here are a few that I’ve enjoyed while in this lull:
- This is Camino
- Tacos: recipes and provocations
- NOPI: the cookbook
- Zahav: a world of Israeli cooking
- The Beetlebung Farm Cookbook
Of course it’s too hot to cook these days…maybe that’s why this is working for me right now. I can simply read and fantasize!
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