the worst book i've ever read

i'm usually bad with books. i go through phases where i read a lot, but unless i write down what i've read i'm not going to remember in a month or two. or i might remember i read the book, but not what it was about. i'll remember whether i liked it or not, but not what the plot was.

i had an experience this summer (no, this doesn't relate to the topic ... feel free to skip down a couple of paragraphs if you'd like) where i was talking with greg about the koreas. (i think it was greg ... we'll say it was greg.) and i got this feeling like i'd read a book about someone from south korea. or north korea. or ... both? it was a memoir, that much i knew. and the young man who wrote it moved away from korea and then back? something about government jobs? and fish? or ... something? and the family ended up in prison? sure enough, after enough mental fishing (and some googling help), i found the book Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korea Gulag. it's a good book. if you're a fan of the memoir, like i am, you should definitely read it. but i wonder how i could enjoy (can you really enjoy this kind of book?) it as much as i did and then completely forget about it?

that doesn't always happen if i really, really like the book, of course. sometimes i can at least remember the name. ;) and while this isn't a post about books i've enjoyed, i will say that one of my favorite books is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. i first read it in high school, and i've read it multiple times since. my most recent reading of it was this past july. i took it with me on a road trip, and i was actually surprised how much i didn't remember. it had been a long time since i'd read it, but for as much as i knew i liked it you'd think i'd remember more about the plot!

anyway, because i enjoy that book so much, i decided i wanted to try another of Huxley's writings. (this is where it starts to come together with the topic, hang in there for another sentence or two.) so i borrowed Point Counter Point from the library. and, you guessed it, i hated it. i pushed myself through the first three chapters, and when i realized i had no idea what had happened in the previous paragraph - i knew i had to stop reading. the characters from chapter one hadn't even been mentioned again, yet! and apparently my patience for long, uninteresting rambling was thin.

so i returned it and checked out something else. i don't remember what that something else was. i'd have to check my list. ;)
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