So I’m in the children’s section of the library, hogging the perfectly cute white little bench seat, ferociously checking my email before the battery ran out. My final read was the pithy blog by my novelist pal Anne Allen on the topic of fiction vs. nonfiction. After dashing off a quick comment claiming my interest in non-fiction, I realized that fiction kinda freaks my left-brain out as useless; though I often fry said brain on People Magazine.
After locking my laptop in the trunk, I walk back into the library to wander the fiction shelves.
First I perused the large print shelves of new fiction thinking I’d enjoy reading without my glasses. This brought up so many questions about my own mortality, not to mention eyesight that in desperation I ended up by squinting my way down the fiction shelves and ended up with two trusty favorites: Elizabeth Berg and Garrison Keillor.
I discovered Berg when I read her non-fiction article entitled Struck by Life (New Woman, 1994) where she talks about how she left nursing to become a writer after she had a health scare. Her writing is simple and plain and true. She cranks out novels like she honors a regular writing routine. Her novel, The Year of Pleasures “is about acknowledging the solace found in ordinary things….”
Garrison Keillor is famous for his Prairie Home Companion radio show as well as his morning NPR The Writer’s Almanac. I’ve been thinking about him since running across Lake Wobegon Days at the Abundance Thrift Shop here in Los Osos. I ended up with his novel, Love Me which I’m hoping will make me laugh because, well. I obviously need to. Check out the blurb:
“A hilarious and hearfelt novel about ambition, success and failure and the virtues of real love and a steady job.”
Ahem.
May you happily wander the fiction aisles seeking the stories of your life,
Dorothy