Reading differently

I am still reading Consider the Fork. I think when I say it like that, it could come off as frustration, and I really don't mean for that to happen. It is a slower book than the last few I've read, and a different kind of book, and the experience of reading it is different. Not just that it takes longer, although clearly it does. I said last time that it was the kind of book I kept wanting to share tidbits from, and I still feel this way (and I do share tidbits every chance I get). It is also the kind of book I could and would like to dip in and out of. A book I should be reading along with another book (I can't - there isn't time). It's very engaging, but I'm not invested in it.

It's kind of amazing, the vastly different effects that books can have on you. Just comparing this one with Lovely, Dark and Deep, for instance. Consider the Fork has, thus far, made my thoughts spin off into considerations about having a minimalist kitchen, wishes to cook more in the hopes of becoming a more intuitive cook, and dreams of buying new pots and pans. It has also made me feel a little lonely in the sense that I don't always have someone around to recount interesting factoids to. Reading Lovely, Dark and Deep took me in some very different directions indeed (I think what little I wrote about it should make that apparent). It made me consider my own past, lost relationships that I have grieved (may still be grieving), and it made me frustrated because I did and did not want to let all that out. Or something. Reading a book like that is visceral - parts of it are so raw it hurts to read them and it hurts to deal with the mental spaces they rub up against.

I keep thinking about Lovely, Dark and Deep. Much as I'm enjoying Consider the Fork, and despite the high probability that I will be regaling friends and family with trivia from it for years to come, it's not going to stick with me in the same way. And that's okay. It doesn't need to. In fact, it might be good - having every book cling to you in such a persistent, gnawing way would be unbearably heavy. These moments of levity, these palate-cleansers, are crucial.