Last week, I gave some of my favorite ways to procrastinate through every college student’s favorite medium: television. This week, I’m supplying all you young scholars with a simple and slightly more intellectual way to eat up your precious time—reading.
Yes, yes, you have a lot of reading in college. I understand. But harken back to the days where you used to read for pleasure—don’t you miss those days? Sure you do.
If you were one of those kids who would rather peel their eyes out with a can opener than willingly pick up a book to peruse, I still encourage you whole-heartedly to give one of these books a try. It’s not as if it’s all Russian literature and Charles Dickens.
1. The Harry Potter series: With the second part of the seventh movie approaching fast, there’s no better time to go back and reread the first book. Or the second book. Or all seven in the series.
Yes, the movies are out and often on ABC Family but re-watching all the Harry Potter films is just being lazy. Your senses are being stimulated for you; you know exactly how many staircases move inside the Hogwarts castle or how staggeringly blonde Draco’s hair is or how many times Emma Watson moves her eyebrows as she tries to dissuade Harry and Ron from their various hijinks in the wizarding world.
When you read the books you envelope yourself in a blanket of description, leaving it up to you to decide how various things will play out. I like to pretend that Neville Longbottom was attractive for his entire six years at Hogwarts (picture on the left).
2. The Girl Who…Trilogy: These books, especially the first, start off slow, but gradually pick up to about warp speed.
What I like about the trilogy is that all three manage to touch on entirely different genres (a mystery novel, a crime fiction, a political tale) while constantly staying true to the characters.
Fun fact: Stieg Larsson wrote all three of these novels before showing them to a publisher. Then he died before the first one was even published, meaning the late Mr. Larsson is now making more money dead than I ever will alive.
3. Anything by Chuck Palahniuk: While I recommend both Choke and Fight Club (if you can, read the book before you see the movie), you can’t go wrong with anything by this guy.
His plots, while mostly improbable, are intricately crafted. His characters, while mostly psychologically damaged, are entirely realistic. His writing, while mostly structured like a third grader on speed’s book report, manages to resonate long after the reader has finished.
A warning: some of his novels (especially Haunted) are tremendously graphic. If you do end up reading Haunted, I guarantee you will never look at a swimming pool the same way again. I’ve said too much already.
4. Anything by David Sedaris: The man is funny; some would even go so far as to say hilarious. However, what I find particularly unique about Sedaris is his humor.
He manages to describe some extremely unpleasant characters (an elf coworker, a deeply-fried Southern friend of a friend) by blending bile and propriety, something I find refreshing in the sarcasm-clogged minefield of tubes and wires that is today’s Internet (and, admittedly, my mind).
North Carolina readers: David Sedaris takes a good portion of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim to discuss his family’s potential property on the Atlantic Beach waterfront and a couple pages in Me Talk Pretty One Day to reflect on the UNC/NC State rivalry. It’s worth a read.
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