Weird reading mash-ups
Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:43AM I like to read more than one book at once. There's a couple of reasons for this: first, there are so many amazing books out there that I have a hard time limiting myself to just one at a time. And second, I'm an expert in nightmares. But I also can't fall asleep without reading. So I need to have a "lighter" book to read when I have a scarier or darker book on my nightstand.
This does have a bizarre result: in my head, the two books sometimes get a little twisted together. Sort of like the song mash-ups they do in Glee.
Right now I'm reading Carrie Ryan's beach-set zombie tale THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES (that would be the dark book!) along with Debbie Reed Fischer's BRALESS IN WONDERLAND, a story about a brainiac becoming a reluctant model in South Beach. Yes, oddly, both are set on the beach. Complete coincidence.
So when I think about picking up a book and reading for a bit, for a moment my brain serves up images of a zombie fashion shoot on the shore by a big lighthouse. It sorts things out soon enough. But for a moment, those two books become one very strange combo.
I've also read the dystopian SHIP BREAKER along with NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL (mash-up: furtive romances on a half-dissembled ship that carried Christmas trees), as well as BEAUTY FOR SHOP RENT next to THE MAZE RUNNER (mash-up: rehabbing a beauty shop in a world inhabited solely by boys and gooshy slicing monsters).
Do you ever read two books (or more) at once? What weird mash-ups does your brain serve up?
