Spoiler Alert

So I liked to read as a kid, particularly when personal pan pizza was involved. I carried around a book most everywhere I went, read in the car, on the schoolbus, everywhere. But for years, almost every book I completed was read out of order.

That’s right. I was one of those people who read the last chapter or final few pages of a novel before the beginning.

To be fair, I read a lot of series’ as a kid. The Baby-Sitters Club was a staple at my house, as were the Sweet Valley Twins. I had a basic idea of the characters, settings and even the plot before reading that damning final chapter.

But it wasn’t like I was reading a lot of mysteries, where I couldn’t wait to find out whodunit. And I wasn’t like Harry from When Harry Met Sally, whose morbidity prevents him from ever assuming that he’ll live long enough to finish a book. Nope, I was simply impatient.

I mostly grew out of this phase, though I don’t remember when. Maybe around the time the majority of my reading ceased being for pleasure and began being for assignments—I didn’t so much care how they turned out. But to this day, when reading something particularly riveting (currently The Hunger Games trilogy, so you can commence making fun of my penchant for YA lit), I find my fingers twitching to turn to the next page before I’ve finished the present one. I’ll notice my eyes flicking paragraphs downward, only to have to force myself to go back and catch up.

I’m impatient. But I’m improving. And maybe one day I’ll come to the realization that some things, like a really good story, just take time.

More on Books and PAX East

The previous post was all about books. (GO READ IT.) I have some particularly fond memories of Book It because not only did I have a crazy appetite for books, but also because my mother worked for Pizza Hut for a while during my upbringing. (Not to mention I KICKED ASS at reading COMPETITIVELY. Because Book It was definitely a competition.) Amy and I seem to be on the same page with this: rewards for doing something I enjoy? YES PLZ.

But I've been thinking more and more lately about associations I have with certain books and certain albums. Especially books from high school...

When I was a sophomore, I read a book by Tom Robbins called Another Roadside Attraction, and at the time I had just really gotten into a band called boyhitscar. The book and the album mixed together perfectly, and I essentially listened on repeat to their album while reading this book. Tom Robbins was my favorite author for several years, and this book introduced me to him.



Between junior and senior year, I was given a long list of choices for summer reading. I had to choose one book each from two different categories, and then select a third the choice of which was left to me (subject to some constraints). The third book, the one I chose, I've never been able to remember, but I definitely remember the other two: Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha and Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. The two albums I had been listening to were The Mars Volta's De-Loused in the Comatorium and Hot Hot Heat's Make Up the Breakdown.


The Mars Volta's album particularly fits Steppenwolf, a very strange album for a very strange book, but I also associate the album with Memoirs. The Hot Hot Heat album doesn't fit either book at all, but I guess I just listened to it so much that it's always stuck with me.


Any time I think about these albums, I think about these books, and vice versa. Without fail. Do you guys have any associations like this?

IN OTHER NEWS: This weekend I will be acting as representative of TT.TKO at PAX East. If I'd had more foresight when I bought my pass, I would have tried for a media pass, but I'll have CDs and business cards hoping to draw us some attention.

I'm excited but nervous. This is a huge convention, and I've never been to anything like it... Yikes. This will also be my first time in Boston, so I have that to look forward to. Anyway, I hope everyone has a good weekend, but you definitely won't have as much fun as me.