Reading Grooves

I love books.  Always have, always will.

I've noticed I tend to get in certain grooves sometimes and read a bunch of books in a short time about a topic.

This happened with WWII/The Holocaust.  I've also read several about the Rwandan genocide.  (Hmmm, apparently my grooves are tinged with sadistic and traumatic tendencies...)

My current reading groove is the Kennedys.  (Yep, still traumatic...)  First I read the memoir Mrs. Kennedy and Me which I can't really discuss on here because I don't want to give away my thoughts before I get a chance to discuss it with my book club!

As soon as I finished it, I picked up 11/22/63 by Stephen King which is about an average English teacher going back in time to try to stop the Kennedy assassination.  This book I can freely discuss, and gladly will (!) because it was such a great read.  I have not read such an imaginative book in some time.  It just proves once again what a brilliant author King is and how varied his work can be.  He has such a gift for capturing a scene, conveying the inner thoughts of a character, and building suspense and intrigue.

This particular book really made me think about how difficult it can be to classify events as "good" or "bad" in life.  We also can't know what all would change if one event happened differently, or didn't happen at all.  I've carried thoughts of the "butterfly effect" in my head long after I read the last page of this book.  It boggles the mind to try and grasp how interrelated all of life is...how our paths can intersect and affect even the most distant random things.

And of course there is the phrase that King uses throughout the entire novel: "life can turn on a dime."  Isn't that a truth we all feel in our gut?  Some feel it more intensely than others.

This book has it all.  There's a love story (which for me was the weakest aspect, but still good), an investigation to prevent the assassination (whodunnit?), a scientific/philosophical line of thought about meddling with the past, a blast to the past to tickle any history buff (hi ho daddy-o), and some intense action-packed adventure.

Even though it's really long, I could barely put it down and finished it in 4 days.  I think lots of people are experiencing the same thing because it did not take long for me to move up from twenty-something to ready for pick up on the waiting list at the library!