The Official Reading PUSH!

It's hard to explain, but I was incapable of concentrating on a book for quite a number of weeks. My brain was mush. I still don't feel my brain is normal, which is probably good for me! I'm now capable, I suppose--at least I have more energy than I did--but I need to find just the right book to get me back on the reading track.

I have some great titles on board. A beautiful hardcover edition of Pamuk's Snow arrived. I was stunned by its perfection. Every minute reading it will be a sensual pleasure. But my brain is not up to its complexities. Gosh! I have loads of new books. Too many! I promise I will write a post about these riches.

My next book, however, is a Dell paperback that has been on my shelves for about four years. I bought it for two dollars at The Lyrical Ballad, a delightful used bookstore in Saratoga Springs. It's a book for young adults by Madeleine L'Engle, one of my favorite authors, entitled And Both Were Young. L'Engle first published it in the early 1960s. But as she explains in the preface to this 1983 revision, she has replaced subject matter that had to be deleted from the original: information about the impact of Phillipa's mother's death on the young teenaged Philippa and her father, and the sexual attraction between Phillipa and her boyfriend, Paul. Death and sex were not topics considered appropriate for young people in the early 1960s.

The setting of And Both Were Young  is at a Swiss boarding school. L'Engle attended boarding schools throughout much of her childhood, including one in Switzerland when she was a teen. I'm eager to finally read this title I've neglected.