Urbane girl, Johnica, has an interesting thing going on her site… an ambitious plan to read and review 52 books in 52 weeks. Personally, I think its a fabulous idea. The one thing law school refused to let me do was “waste time” with fiction. At one point my first year I started to freak out because I realized I hadn’t had a creative thought (I mean truly creative, not just “how can I fake like I read 80 pages of Torts,” creative) in over a week. I went to the book store and bought (another) copy of my all time favorite book The Great Gatsby and began reading it in the commons between classes.

A third year student I had never seen before came over to me and asked, “Are you . . . reading . . . for fun?” As if the thought never occurred to her. Like something out of one of those post-apocalyptic movies (you know when something from past washes up on the store of their futuristic shanty town and everyone is in awe “could it really be… no… behold… a doll“), she took the book from my hand (true story) and slowly flipped through the pages. “Don’t let law school take this from you,” she said in this overly profound way. “I mean it…” And, as oddly as she drifted over to my spot on the sofa, she left — never to be seen or heard from again.

Come to think of it, she probably wasn’t even a law student. Our building was notorious for random loiterers. She was probably some disgruntled English major drop-out or something. But you get the point. Reading for fun was not something I did very much during my first year. I’ve tried to make up for it since graduation. The other night I finished, “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” by Marisha Pessl, which I really enjoyed. Its sort of like a mix of modern chic-lit with substance and very good writing. It also annoyingly reminded about all the great literature I’ve neglected to read over the years. Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy it. Plus there’s nothing like some good fiction to add flavor and depth to your daydreams.