I’m not much of a reader. I used to be, back in the day. I used to read books by the… well, maybe not dozens exactly, but I used to read a whole lot more than I do now. I think I read a grand total of three novels last year?
It really is a damn shame too, because I love to read. I really do. Books are so much more interesting and deeper than movies and TV. Aside from me being completely obsessed with video games, I think the only thing that keeps me from reading more is the fact that it takes a really long time to read a book. I have a tough time sitting through a two-hour movie, so you can understand how my attention would easily wane while trying to work my way through a book. I’m a slow reader, too, and that certainly doesn’t help.
While perusing the internet last year, I happened to come across a piece of Mother 3 trivia that interested me: The twins in that game are named after a set of twins in a trio of novels. Intrigued, I did a search and upon reading the Amazon summary, I knew that these were books that I had to read.
The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie. Collectively, they are apparently known as The Book of Lies, but the book that I bought gave the trilogy no such title. I bought it for my wife as a Christmas gift, since it sounded like something that she’d enjoy as well, and also because she actually does read a lot of books. But secretly (not actually secretly, as I told her outright), I had bought it for myself and waited patiently as she worked through it so that I could have my turn.
The day came, and I began reading. I was not hooked right away, but I think that by about 20 pages in I was finding it almost impossible to put down. I chipped away at it over a couple weeks. Somewhere in the middle of The Proof I set it down for a month or so, choosing to focus on handheld video games as my settling down activity before going to sleep. But then I picked it back up and burned through the rest in three consecutive nights. When I closed it and put it down on my nights stand, I wondered how long one should wait before re-reading a book. The only book I’ve read twice in the last decade was Monster Island.
And this is where I wish that I was smarter. I wish that I knew how to talk about books. I wish I knew how to intelligently express how I feel about the trilogy I just finished reading.
As it is, all I can leave you with is the sentiment that I absolutely loved these books. They were beautiful, and horrifying, and depressing, and inspiring, and heartrending. They were brilliant. It’s not often that I offer book recommendations, but go to Amazon right now and put your order in.
The only other book that I can recall being quite so gaga over is The Forever War, and I only wrote one sentence about that one. You know what I think it is about these books that proves that they’re so great? They make me want to read more.