Books and Beaches

After a multi-month hiatus, today I finally started reading again for pleasure. My book of choice? The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a collection of interconnected tales inspired by O’Brien’s experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. I first heard about the book just under a year ago through watching Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s incredible Vietnam War documentary series, which features O’Brien as an interviewee, and have been wanting to give it a read ever since. Having received a copy for Christmas, it has been sat (as so many books have) on my desk waiting for me to finally find the time to read it. And, from what I’ve read so far, it appears to have been well worth the wait. One of my goals for the summer is to read (at least) one book every week, so I’ll be sure to incorporate that into the blog somehow and let you know my full thoughts when I’ve finished the book.

Despite spending a large part of my morning cooped up inside reading, I felt that it would be irresponsible not to make the most of the beautiful weather and so headed down to the beach in the afternoon, book in hand. It ultimately turned out to be a little too busy for my liking as far as reading was concerned, so I instead ended up taking a relaxing stroll, basking in the enduring majesty of the ocean.