Swamped by book love

A strange new phenomenon -- everybody seems to want to read along with me! I love this new development, though it could eventually verge on overwhelming. But for now, keep it coming!

It all started when I came down with a cold and was laid out on the couch for several days. I picked up Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for a comforting reread, since my brother had just mentioned he was reading it. I finished it in record time (due to 3 days off work) and the bro and I had a couple great email exchanges about this old favorite.

My brother's next read was going to be Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I had a copy of and also had been wanting to read. I waited for the 'OK' to start reading it, by which time my brother had finished it already -- but that was fine since it was a tornado of a read. As in, it wouldn't put me down.

For this book especially, it was invaluable to have someone to talk to who had also just finished reading it and was still processing the story emotionally. I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't have shared that experience with someone! It was a hard road, but worth taking.

While all this was going on, I was feverishly attempting to read A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland by Samuel Johnson for the Scottish Literature Reading Challenge. The 1700s aren't really my strong suit, and I was struggling to read ten pages a night. What really kept me going, though, was the idea that Amateur Reader (and others) had recently read this piece also, and would be chipping in to a discussion at some point.

Kind of like reading for class and hoping that everyone else has done the reading too! (In which I reveal my nerdy side.)

Now I'm on my way to Book 3 of Middlemarch while my good friend S. reads along with me from afar. We haven't started our discussion yet, but I know when we do it will enrich my understanding and appreciation of Eliot's classic. I'm already wondering as I read what S. will say about this or that.

My brother and sister and I are in negotiations for our next readalong and I can only hope that we'll make this into a habit. It's a new pleasure that I haven't ever experienced on my own, outside of English class.

It's another whole level up from reading a book and passing it along to a friend with a hearty recommendation. That still has its joys, of course. But reading together with the aim of finishing a book at approximately the same time is so much richer and more exciting.

There is the potential of discussing the book before finishing it, of course. I love the process by which we as readers evolve into a story like finned creatures to dry land. Each reader's evolution is slightly different - which makes great conversation potential.

I love the thought that the flush of disoriented madness that overtakes me when I turn the last page of a good book, now might be shared. Or, for that matter, the howls of rage or disappointment at the end of a bad book.

It's the freshness and the rawness of that response - perishable as it usually is - that I look forward to exchanging with another reader.

Have you ever had a reading partner? How did it influence your reading?