I’ve gotten back into reading. The past two months I’ve read over seven books, after a drought of no reading, that seemed to last forever. My two favorites have been I Know This Much Is True and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

First I read I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. The size was the first motivator, I love epic novels like East of Eden, mostly because I feel accomplished after reading a nine hundred and twelve page book. The second motivator was the author. A year ago I read She’s Come Undone, which was another long novel by Wally Lamb that I enjoyed immensely. When I began reading I Know This Much Is True I was a little bored with the book in the beginning, but after giving it a few more pages, I was unable to tear my mind away from this story.

The novel describes the life and childhood Dominick Birdsey and his schizophrenic twin Thomas. Dominick enters therapy to help find the root of his brother’s mental illness wherein he describes his childhood from his point of view. The horrorfying traumas and twisting plot make it hard to put down.

Between I Know This Much Is True and my current read Catch-22 I read an amazing novel you might’ve read for school years ago. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. It follows the life and times of a young girl, Francie, who lives with her mother, father, and brother Neely. Set in Brooklyn, during the formative years of the 20th century, the novel is a poignant account of the struggles of a working class family; dealing with alcoholism, poverty, and raising a family in a gritty world.

I love reading about the first sixty years of the twentieth century, I love hearing my parents’ accounts of their childhoods, and I love seeing films and pictures that document the culture of America in those times.