Novel idea

By Natalie Calderon

There is something that happens when school starts in September. I turn into a zombie: reading textbooks, writing papers, completing assignments. I go to class, work, meetings, and try hard to do my homework. I burn myself out. So when nighttime comes, the last thing I want to do is "read for pleasure." I can be in the middle of the greatest book ever, but when school starts on that first day, I cannot pick that book up again until school is out and Christmas break has arrived.

During breaks, I suddenly become me again, and I have this intense craving to read every novel I can get my hands on. I am suddenly a book junkie. This summer, it happened to me. I became addicted to bookstores and I bought book after book after book.

I know I sound like a geek. And I probably am. But if you have ever read a good book in your life, then you know what it's like to curl up on your bed, under a blanket and read until your eyes are sore. You read for three hours straight. You finish a 400-page novel in one day. You cry because it moved you, you laugh out loud when you're all alone. That was me. I spent maybe one too many nights curled up on my bed reading until my eyes hurt.

And that's why I would like to share some of these books with you, in hopes that you'll find some time one of these breaks to plunge into some good, honest reading.

Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. Bridget stresses over the everyday traumas of love, friendship and beauty. Probably more of a "girly" book.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Extremely funny travel writer, Bryson recounts the story of his treacherous hike along New England's Appalachian Trail.

Blackbird by Jennifer Lauck. A memoir about a "childhood lost." Lauck experiences the death of loved ones at an early age and is forced to grow up before even hitting her teens. A kleenex-clenching tear-jerker.

Man and Boy by Tony Parson. About a man who has everything he ever wanted and then screws it up when he has an affair. He changes when he is faced with being a single parent in a demanding society.