The Side-Effects of a Good Book

I truly love when you become so engaged in a book that suddenly you realize it's 1:00 a.m. and you have to remind yourself that the book will still be there when you wake up. That was me last night. In fact, I only had a chapter left but decided I didn't want to go and spoil it by reading it all. So I saved the last of it as a treat for when I woke up.

The book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

It was given to me by my darling Jason, last winter when he was leaving Paris. Like most things, I never got around to reading it until now.
It's not an action or even a romance novel. Just a story about real life based on the author's childhood experience of growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early 1900's, given the fictional character of Francie Nolan. It's heart wrenching and heart warming all at the same time. Every time I put it down, I was left contemplating my own life and comparing myself to little Miss Francie Nolan. I appreciate her compassion, determination, selflessness and innocence. As any good book (or movie), you're left thinking about it for days after you've finished it and that's what is so lovely. You take a piece of it with you.
It's amazing to become so wrapped up in another's words that you forget about your own reality and become absorbed into theirs. It truly takes a talented writer to pull off such a trick and I'm always grateful when I discover such. I find myself being motivated by it and thinking, "I want to write such a book!" Then all the ideas swirl around my head and never seem to make it to paper. I guess that's the problem with being a dreamer, but hopefully someday I'll have my own stories and adventures to share in book form. Someday... Until then, this blog will have to do.