The Message For Me

I know I'm really slacking but I finally started my first novel of the year. Now don't think I haven't been reading at all because I have made a dent in the the giant pile of comic books and graphic novels but this is the first novel I've started. I'm reading "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham. I've seen the movie and I liked it but I do miss that inner dialogue and detail that you just can't find on the screen so I am now reading the book. I'm only about fifty pages in but so far I really like it. I'll say more when I'm done with the book but for now I hate jumping ahead.

I've been trying to come up with new post that don't just say "I wrote today" and starting to read a new novel got me thinking that I didn't write hardly anything about the books I read last year. So I thought I'd write a few post about the books I read last year.
Today I thought I would mention three of the books I read and what they meant to me. I think the best writing always has a message even if it's slight. I hope that one day I can write a novel that makes people think as much as I did when I read these.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee- I know I should have finished reading this book a long time ago but when we read it in school I was too busy not being at school. Anyway, I did start it long ago and it wasn't until the fabulous Jenni was teaching her students that I decided it was time to find out how it ended. It really made me reflect on what I was raised to believe and what I believe now. It made me think about how I was fortunate enough to step back from what I had been taught and to learn to think for myself. I can't imagine the person I would be if I had continued to believe what I was told and never searched for more.

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts- This book is about the start of the AIDS pandemic. It tells the stories of some of the first people to become infected and people who were trying to stop it from becoming the problem that it is today. Sometimes it was almost surreal to read parts of it. When I realized that the situations that people were ignoring would turn out to be things that would affect so many lives. I was amazed at how things could have been so different if people had taken action.

Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally- I once met somebody who hadn't heard much about the book or the movie. They just assumed that it was about concentration camps in Germany during World War II and that the list was people who were sentenced to death. I guess it would be hard to assume that during that horrible time that anything good could have happened but there were people who chose to risk their lives for the lives of others. And I hope if the day ever came when I had that choice to make that I would do the same.