Booking Through Thursday – Well, that was different

What was the most unusual (for you) book you ever read? Either because the book itself was completely from out in left field somewhere, or was a genre you never read, or was the only book available on a long flight… whatever? What (not counting school textbooks, though literature read for classes counts) was furthest outside your usual comfort zone/familiar territory?

And, did you like it? Did it stretch your boundaries? Did you shut it with a shudder the instant you were done? Did it make you think? Have nightmares? Kick off a new obsession?

Let me think…a couple of years ago I read my first memoir. I was never much of a non-fiction reader. I doubt I had ever read any for fun. However one of the members of my book group suggested we read Lucky by Alice Sebald. This was my first memoir, my first non-fiction book to read for personal enjoyment and not school. What did I think? I loved it! I loved both the story and the fact that it was a memoir. I then started to read more memoirs. While I admit they aren't the genre I read the most, I do look into them and buy them and even read some. Haha! So..to answer the question about, it didn't make me shudder – well, let me think about that. I shuddered at the way she was treated and what she had to go through, but I didn't shudder because I actually had to read a memoir. Did it make me think? Heck yeah it did! I think every memoir since has made me think. It's because I know the story is real (or at least it's supposed to be). So I think about what the person has gone through and I would do the same thing etc. Have nightmares? No...none of those. Kick off a new obsession? You bet! I love memoirs now. I don't read them as much as I would like, but at least I do read them. It even prompted me to actually read some other non-fiction books. Something I would probably not have done before.