Today is the first installation of... Book Worm Wednesday!
This summer I made a point to read as many books as I could, and I found the whole experience to be very rewarding; like crossing things off a list combined with going on adventures. What could be better? This exercise also reminded me of the Book-It days! Does anyone else remember getting free pizza as a reward for reading?
If forced, I would choose Love in the Time of Cholera as my favorite read this summer. It is lyrical, cyclical, beautiful, and haunting. More than a love story, Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a book that is equally relatable and mystical. Marquez is a master of inviting the reader into worlds that are so mundane and so transcendent that it is easy (and delightful) to get lost in them. Love in the Time of Cholera follows a couple characters closely and many more not-so-closely although at times it is difficult to tell who are the main characters- he is such a good story teller that at the end of the book I felt each of his characters were absolutely necessary. In this way Marquez delicately unfolds a rich, textured story of love and how people learn to connect and live with each other.
A small excerpt that may give you an idea of the writing style:
"Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness, and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was the time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore."
The days are getting shorter, dark is coming earlier, and it's a great season to pick up a book!