Eat Pray Love

I have recently started reading a new book. For a while there I was only reading stupid girly chick lit books that did absolutely nothing for me except kill time.

That was fun, for a while. Then I started to crave some real reading. Classics, meaningful books, things people ACTUALLY are passionate about. So what I did was come up with a gigantic list of books that I want to read. Here it is:

Wizard of Oz
Withering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
Tale of Two Cities
Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Don Quixote
Dracula (Bram Stoker's edition)
Ethan Frome
Hound of the Baskervilles
Jane Eyre
Madame Bovary
Odysseus
Swiss Family Robinson
Scarlet Letter
Kite Runner
Gulliver's Travels
The Canterbury Tales

Those are the ones I came up with on my own. Then one of my teachers last semester (by far the coolest and most intriguing teacher ever) gave me a list of books he though I'd like. They are:

Everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten
A Yankee Way of Knowledge
Don Juan
As a Man Thinketh
Travels with Charley (Can't believe I've never read this, since it's Steinbeck and I live in Salinas and all...)
Shogun
On the Road (Can't WAIT to read this one. I love beat writers)
The Covenant
The Mismeasure of Man
100 years of Solitude
Stranger to the Ground
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Night (Elie Wiesel)

It's all fine and dandy to have this gigantic list, but really how many of those do I have access to without driving a fair distance? I looked in 3 different libraries within 10 miles of me, and the only one I could find that has MOST of these books is the Harrison Memorial Library in Carmel... Well that's a 30 min drive for books. Okay... There has to be a better option. So I looked into a Kindle (which is still a maybe, since I'll be traveling a lot and all).

Anyway, the whole point of this post was to tell you about 2 books that I've read/started to read recently. I was hanging out at my dad's house, doing nothing. When I wandered over to his very small collection of books, looking for something that might entertain me. Well, he has Marley and Me, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons (all of which I've read), and then he has Cesar's Way. I'm not really into a book on dog training. SKIP.

The last one I came across was The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I had always though it was a religious book or something, like you meet Peter, then whoever else and builds up to God. Not really my type of book, considering I'm not a particularly religious person. However, I finally read the information on it. WOW. It sounded like an amazing book!! So, naturally, I started reading. I finished that book in 2 hours and it was fantastic!!! So if any of you are looking to read a good, quick book that's definitely the one.

Onto the one I'm reading now. Eat Pray Love. Again, a book I've avoided because it seemed very religious-like to me and again, not my thing. BUT, there's been so much hype about it lately that I borrowed my friend's copy and started reading. Another winner!! I'm only on page 40 (having just barely started reading it), but I'm having a hard time putting it down to go to the dentist!! This book really hit home for me, especially considering that I leave to Prague in a month. She travels to India, Indonesia, and Italy, and along the way she makes friends, enjoys all things cultural, and finds herself. I feel like this is what I've been looking for... the reassurance that I'm not the only person who feels like maybe just getting out of my routine for a while will help me see my life in a different way. I'm not looking to find love or any of that, just to find some peace for me and maybe, just maybe, figure out what exactly it is that I want to do what I'm done with college. I have 2 years left, and I'm at a loss. I feel like maybe this book will help me see what I need to do while I'm abroad to have an entirely fulfilled trip to Prague.

More on this topic as I read the book. It'll be on hold this weekend though, I'll be in Las Vegas poolside most of the day and, since it's not mine, I don't want to take it just in case I ruin it.

PS-- Any thoughts on the Kindle?? I'm still REALLY thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it. For a person that reads as much as I do (plus traveling!), I think it'll be pretty awesome.