It's been a long time

You thought I was going to say "since I blogged," right?

But actually what I was going to say is this:  it's been a long time since I've had the experience of really falling into a book.  And by that I mean being in the book so thoroughly that you're living the lives of those characters--even dreaming their dreams at night.

I had that experience this week.  I went up to the farm with Betsy to write (hence my silence--no wi-fi there) and in the evening I read ALL THAT I AM by Anna Funder, a novel set in Germany between the wars.  Because I wasn't distracted by TV or the internet or the phone or housework or anything at all, I read uninterrupted--something that never ever ever EVER happens these days.  And so I fell into the pages and inhabited the streets of Berlin and London with passionate, desperate people.

It's a fine novel, although at this point I don't think I can be objective because of the intensity of the reading experience itself.  If you read it, let me know what you think.