So it’s Towel Day 2023 and I really have nothing prepared. If you’d like to scroll back in this website, there are nearly 800 reviews. Some are good, some are bad, and some are downright embassing in their enthusiasm. I make no apologies. When I really love something, I REALLY love something.
” Haven’t you been reading?” you might ask. I have a little. I have a frightening stack of TBR books just waiting and silently judging me. I added two books to the pile last night after attending a bookstore event. I buy the old favourites: John Sandford, Lee Child, etc… and am several books behind in each. Thankfully my Dad makes up for it by reading each new release by these authors and several others usually the week they come out.
I have read books that I could review. That I WANT to review but life has caught up. I recently helped organize a Jane’s Walk festival in the County where I live and my day job is high demand and deeply stressful. The most hurtful thing to my reading life is that I now go to bed several hours earlier than I did when younger.
To tie in to Towel Day, when I read it’s Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or (yes) Douglas Adams. I need that clever humour to decompress. That’s what Douglas Adams is to me. An author with a wit that I never could posess but that I find wholly satisfying. He was an escape from a restrictive religious upbringing. My mom didn’t (and doesn’t) read so couldn’t imagine pre-screening her children’s books so never did. Lucky for me. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy was perfect to read under the covers with a flashlight and I read it over and over again. Even now, it is the one book that I take the time to reread from time to time. I watch the BBC show which I have on DVD at least once per year all the way through.
Douglas Adams was a man that lived the dream by working with the pioneering humourists of his age and lending his genius to so many mediums and dying simply far too young. He was a man that died in his prime because he was always in his prime. My life has been and continues to be a quest to find authors that have a similiar brillance.
I will be back to writing reviews sometime soon but in the meantime when I need some light and happiness, I will turn to Douglas Adams and cherish his work and life.