A few weeks ago I joined my employer's Christmas celebration event. In addition to the very typical free drinks and food our company organised a secret book Santa. In short what this means is you get to pick a book for one of your colleagues, the company buys the book for your colleague.
In addition to picking a book we all made a single ppt slide in which we had to explain why we choose the particular book. Myself I had picked a colleague that is very much into non-fiction books. I decided to gift him Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I read this book myself in the past and really loved the story.
I was given this book myself in the past without any context. I didn't know beforehand what the story would entail. I loved this concept. I therefore didn't reveal anything in my powerpoint presentation and told my colleague to not read up on the book before reading it. Not sure if he did already but I'm looking forward to his verdict!
Myself I was given a book that was written by the gifter's favorite author Dave Eggers. At first I didn't know who this author was but my colleague told me it was the author of the Circle, a book that made it into film later. The Circle I actually watched and liked.
The book I was gifted is called The Parade. I didn't read the back cover and didn't google it in advance. I simply started with page 1. The excitement of not knowing was nice once again!
The book itself turned out the be quite nicely written. It's based around a very simple story with very few characters. Dull you might say, as it doesn't contain much material to work with. But this simplicity allows for the story to quickly develop and to keep you hooked until the very end. And that's exactly what it did! It was a page turner with nothing in it!
Near the end, well at the very very end, the book makes a sudden unexpected turn. Something that keeps bugging my mind. If you would like to know, you would have to read this fine piece of writing!
Part of my reason to post about this book is my goal to read more books in 2024. While I always read books, I tend to not read anythings for months on end. Something many of us experience I think. This book is the first on for 2024. The next one I have already started now is Walden a classic by Henry David Thoreau. More on that later.
Do you have any books lined up for reading? Would love to hear about it :)
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