Nasty Habits

First of all, I am convinced that people are either Barnes & Noble people or Borders people. I am a B&N girl. When I walk into a B&N, I feel like I'm coming home. I know where everything is, I know where to stake out the best comfortable chairs. I know the beverage list at the cafe. (I also feel this in the Nordstrom shoe department, but that is an entirely different nasty habit.) When I enter a Borders, I am in a foreign land. I don't speak the language. I don't know where anything is. I can't find a translator to help me. Needless to say, I much prefer Barnes and Noble.

Anyway, I was talking about my nasty habits.

I talk to strangers. I always have. I climbed into a police car when I was about four years old and badgered the poor officer who was trying to clock speeders. "Where's your gun?" "What's that thing for?" "Can I try the siren?" "Can I flash the lights?" "Can I try on your hat?" "What are you doing with that thing?" "Can I go for a ride?" (In my memory, the policeman was very polite.) So now, as an adult, when I am in Barnes & Noble, I will give my opinion of the book the person across the display table is looking at. Unannounced. Unsolicited. Usually, the person the person looks up at me, startled, or, worse yet, they jump back. This happened to me today. A woman across the table from me picked up The Time Traveler's Wife and started to read the back. [Remember how I raved about that book? Yeah.] I said, "That's the best book I've read all year." The woman visibly recoils, composes herself and replies, "Really? Thank you for telling me." She was very friendly to this crazy person who verbally assaulted her in a place kin to a library. Thank you, Unassuming Woman at B&N, for putting up with my inability to keep to myself.

The other problem I have is I cannot leave Barnes & Noble empty-handed. Today, I went in with my member's discount prize, ready to find something that I have coveted for a long time but have not bought. Since I am packing my apartment right now, and have too many boxes filled with books, I headed straight for the music section. I knew exactly what I was looking for: Arvo Part's "I am the True Vine" CD. I love his music. It's choral. I am a choral freak. Anyway, it's more expensive than a normal CD (because it's so cool!) so I knew that THIS was the thing on which I would spend my prize. After purchasing the CD from a very funny older man, I proceeded out to the Fiction and Literature section. This is dangerous territory. I browsed and touched things and carried books around with me, I wrote a few titles in my Moleskine that I carry around for just that purpose (read: listmaking), and finally put everything back and left the store with my one CD that I went in to purchase.

I am very brave.

Peace Like a River

So, I don't normally get into religious books. Let's just put that out there. I have a difficult time with the pushiness of hard-core fundamentalist religion that is usually touted in christian fiction. So when I opened up the cover of Peace Like a River , by Leif Enger, and read that it was one of the best pieces of fiction about faith, I got a little nervous. (I bet you're thinking, "Wow, she's kinda close-minded about the whole Christian novel thing!" Not really. It's more the fact that I won't get to read all the books on my mental list before I die... which is sad.) I read the first ten pages of this book while I was procrastinating earlier this summer. It held my attention, mostly because of the quirky, backwoods Minnesota language. Unfortunately, I had to put it down. (Way to go, Me!)

So now I'm reading it for real. And I like it. And I like the faith aspect. I don't feel pushed or choked by the author's religious views. I just feel happy. Happy that the allegory is so fun to journey through, like The Chronicles of Narnia. I love the surface story as well as the undercurrent. I love that the little girl's name is Swede and that she's spunky and opinionated and wise beyond her nine years.

I don't think that this will help me transition into lots of Christian fiction. And actually I don't think that was Enger's point in writing the book. I think he set out to write a beautiful book set in his boyhood small-town Minnesota. I get the impression that he is a very smart guy. Someone I'd want to sit in coffee shops with.