Quality Fiction
Lately my co-workers have been giving me books to read. I appreciate the thought, but they all read Quality Fiction. This is a problem. I read to escape reality. Quality Fiction does not provide an escape so much as distillation of reality--a reality concentrate. Because reading books is an immersion experience for me, reading about the self-loathing and cowardice of the main character in The Kite Runner, or the impotent rage of the teacher in A Lesson Before Dying subjects me to the same muffled panic of being caught in traffic while late for work. I'm stuck. There are no shortcuts. All I can do is to plough through until I reach the end.