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| The Thread's Must-Read |
Last week, I told you about being inspired by a picture of Oprah reading under the trees in her back yard. Her column said she’d been so transported that she’d only closed the book when it grew too dark to see the page.
I’ve had two experiences like that, where I remember exactly where I was, what it sounded like, what it felt like. The first was on an Italian train speeding toward Venice. I was traveling with a friend and I’d volunteered to keep an eye on our luggage so I was seated in a little “jump seat” at the far end of the cabin. With my back to the wall, I could look out through large windows and see gently rising hills and burnt umber fields of hay.
As the train traveled through the Italian countryside, it was swaying and that motion oddly brought the book I was reading to life. It was Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Lacuna," a novel that plunges readers into a blue underwater cave, where the tide will carry a young boy into a tunnel and inspire an obsession with the mysteries of the cave.
I can still remember Kingsolver’s description of that underwater world, and the motion of the train made me feel like I was swimming in the currents with the character. That boy would eventually get a job with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and some day I’ll travel to Mexico City to see those murals and to read this wonderful novel again.
The other indelible reading experience is more recent. I like to hike the backcountry of the Catalina Mountains in southern Arizona, and I’ve begun carrying my Kindle on those hikes. A couple of hours in, I’ll keep a sharp eye out for rattlesnakes, choose a boulder in the sun, and open a novel. I recently finished Becky Masterman’s latest detective novel there, made especially enjoyable because she sets her stories in Tucson.
I breathed the clear air, stopped every now and then to run my gaze across the mountain ridges, and savored every twist and turn of the story.
So, those are my favorite reading experiences. How about yours? Tweet me @KerriMPR or send me an email. Tell me where you were, what you were reading and what made it so special.
-Kerri Miller |
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