I opened up my windows earlier this week for the first time since last October, in order to let the fresh early spring air breeze through my apartment. With the end of winter finally upon us (I'm no fan of the cold weather), I started thinking about my summer reading list, and this in turn, had me pondering about how the weather and geography affects what we read.
Ashamed as I am of this fact, I must come clean and admit that I have never read Wuthering Heights. I purchased the Dover Thrift edition about seven years ago, and it's followed me about the country ever since. I picked it up the other day, made a cup of coffee, and sat down in my favorite reading chair, made it about eight pages in, then put it down thinking, as a Chicago Cubs fan does each September "wait until next year." There was just something about the sweet warm air, and the sunny skies that completely put me off of reading about misty windswept moors, and damp country houses in Yorkshire.
This in turn had me thinking about my summer reading list, which I will write more about in a later post. In my office right now I have a pile of about 7 library books, and about 17 books on my "to be read in the immediate future" shelf, all of which I've received as Christmas gifts, or have randomly purchased over the past 6 months. And I wondered if I am the only person who does the following...
I'll hear, or read about a particular book that sounds fantastic, so I'll either get it from the local library, or purchase it thinking "Oh, I can't wait to read this!" About 40% of the time I'll read it within about a week or two of getting it in my hands, but the majority of the time it ends up on my bookcase, not quite forgotten, but just pushed back a bit in the line. Then a year might go by, because in the meantime, each time I come to it, I'm not quite "in the mood" to read this particular book, excited as I still may be to read it.
I think that this scenario has to do a lot with the season, and geographical location and that it happens to more than just a fair share of us. When living in Arizona, I took a course in 20th Century Eastern European Literature, and as much as I enjoyed the reading material, I found it difficult to really get into the guts of Solzhenitsyn, as I read Cancer Ward under a palm tree on a 97 degree day in Tempe.
So my apologies go out to Miss Bronte; I am afraid that she will just have to wait for me to join the ranks as one of her fans until the next snowfall. In the meantime, I will be keeping company with the literary equivalent of a fresh summer salad.
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