Where’d we leave off last week? Where’d we leave off? Oh yeah: I’ve got something to say! Nothing terribly important, though.
So I’m taking a little bit of a break from The Omnivore’s Dilemma since I’m at a good breaking point with maybe another hundred pages to go. I do that sometimes. I just take a break if a book is taking forever, because I’ll enjoy it more when I come back to it after a week.
I’ve taken the opportunity to get started on the new David Sedaris book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. It’s really good. Though why should that surprise me? Sedaris is, after all, one of my favorite writers. I’ve already read most of his other titles, including Barrel Fever, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day and most of Holidays on Ice (which I make it a point to only work on during the month of December…so I’ll likely finish it this year).
Sedaris writes short stories and essays, a medium that I particularly enjoy reading because of the sense of accomplishment I feel each time I finish one, rather than the daunting task of an entire novel. In fact, short story is really the only medium of fiction that I wholly enjoy. Aside from that, non-fiction is really up my alley (though my favorite book, to this day, is still Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
But it’s not just a sense of accomplishment; it’s also encouraging. I mean, as soon as I’ve finished one short story, the next one is right there waiting for me, and I read this last one fast enough that the next one shouldn’t take me too long either. As such, I tend to tear through collections of short stories, like Sedaris’, rather quickly.
However, it should be noted that, at around the three quarters mark, I start slowing down and then take some time off before finishing the whole book. But hey, that’ll be a great excuse to get back to The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And the circle of life is complete.
