I seem to always hear people talk about summer reading lists. You know, almost every magazine has some variation of the "summer reading: what's hot" or "beach reads" etc. Well the past little while, about 4 days actually, I've been pondering over my recent summer reading selection. And I've found myself in Siberia. Sentenced to eight years hard labour along with Ivan Somethingorothervitch.

Yes, I'm reading a Russian novel. Don't worry it's not Crime and Punishment or War and Peace or something else, long, vodka-soaked and generally beautiful in a cold, once-glorious way. It's A Day in the Life of Ivan D . . .well, I've forgotten his last name. And goodness me. I am lost in the literary wilderness and have no foreseeable way of getting out of it except finishing that day with Ivan in the "special" or hard labour camp.(can you believe it's called "special" camp? If it wasn't so puke-inducing sad, it'd be funny). It's 130 pages of one day. One day. Chew on that for a while. And I can't read it at night, or I end up having dreams about bed bugs, frost bite and grey oatmeal. There are few things worse than reading a lengthy description about grey oatmeal and how it's made. Grey oatmeal. Grey oatmeal!

Don't ask what possessed me to choose this novel of all the thousands of years of literature. And please don't ask what compels me to keep reading. I don't even like Ivan all that much. He just makes me want to cry because he had scurvy. So tonight I think I'll take a break from the haunting, grey oatmeal world of special camp and go for something lighter. . .where's my copy of Jane Eyre?