You could read a book!

Happy Labor Day...do something that you wouldn't normally be able to do on a Monday.

I'm working on a couple of ideas for this week's drabbles, but in the meantime, here's a book recommendation.

I am, and have been for about a month now, in the midst of reading The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. That doesn't sound like a great way to introduce a book I'm going to recommend, but the truth is that it just took me a little while to get into it, and only in these past couple weeks have I really been devoting the necessary attention to the task of reading.

I pick up this novel kind of randomly. I'd heard of the author and could see the Pulitzer sticker on the cover. When I found out by the reading the back that it was the story of two boys in New York in the 30s and 40s who write a comic book together, I decided it would probably be a good buy, and did so.

The reason it took me awhile to get into the book is that it's very long-winded. Elaborate, lengthy, complex sentences...beautiful descriptions, but ones that require a lot of attention from the reader. So, not a book to be sped read. I liked it from the beginning but just didn't commit enough. Now, I'm really enjoying.

It very well might be the most romantic book I've read in a long time. Not just the actual romances in the novel, either; the whole book is a romance. (The actual romances are, however, quite romantic.) It's a love story about art, and history, and New York, and growing up, and I think that this perspective of it helps explain the long-windedness. I think my own romantic inclinations are on the long-winded side.

Of course, there is a more taciturn form of romance, as well, understated rather than over.

Anyway, I highly recommend this novel, even though I haven't finished it yet. If the end changes my mind, I'll do the responsible thing and let you know, but I doubt that's going to happen.