The holiday season has struck! I’ve spent the last week visiting family in California, and though 16 hours spent flying back and forth across the country would seem like a good thing for my page count — the truth is that I never end up reading as much as I expect to when I’m travelling. That combined with the fact that I’m currently working my way through the Gotham Writer’s Workshop Guide to Writing Fiction, which is taking much longer than powering through a quick and easy novel, means that I’ve not finished nearly as many books as I usually do in a month.

But, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought I’d make up for my lack of reading with a vista from near my hometown — enjoy!

And now on to  this month’s books! My page count comes to just 886 this month.

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Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

After much waffling, I was convinced to go ahead and read the first three Dune books. This month’s completion of Dune Messiah means I’m officially two for three. Reading Dune Messiah was interesting, because the novel is set up by a foreword by Frank Herbert’s son which rather led me to believe I would find the book frustrating and less enjoyable than Dune. I didn’t find that to be true in the least.

Was Dune Messiah different from Dune? Yes, of course. The characters had aged, matured, and changed, just as characters ought to do. Was the book darker than the first Dune novel? Yes, but again the characters were older and more mature and were faced with problems on a much larger scale. Personally, I found the story as compelling, the world building as careful, and tale as enjoyable as the first Dune novel.

Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser

This month I really enjoyed reading Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser. The book teaches lessons about facing life gracefully (particularly life’s downturns) through the medium of story. Both Lesser’s own personal story and the stories of friends, family, and several of her workshop students are explored. It’s a lovely book and I’ve decided to allow Lesser to speak for herself:

“I have trained myself now — when something is not going my way, and I feel rising up within me a big, hard No! — to take a breath or two, and counter that No with different counsel. I tell myself to ‘die to it’…. What must die? Any resistance to the bigger truth. Any holding on by that part of me — my little ego part — that cannot see beyond its own nose…. Practicing dying means living as close to reality as we can in each moment. It is the ultimate bravery.”

That’s what I’ve read this month — how about you? Got a great read I should add to my list? Let me know in the comments below!

 

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