Looking for Light in All the Wrong Places

I'm looking for a light read. You know, chick-lit. Something along the lines of The Nanny Diaries perhaps, or maybe even a Bridget Jones or an In Her Shoes--something I can put down without a bookmark, pick up whereever, and not miss anything important. Something that won't stay with me for days or weeks, something that won't haunt me, something that won't change my life or challenge my way of thinking. Something that won't break my heart.

Yes, I've been rethinking my reading list. It's getting me down. It's much too heavy. I need to lighten up, I know, at least when it comes to books. That's what I tell myself, but I've been through this before--it'll pass.

Here before me--in my living-room bookcases, sandwiched between Dostoyevsky and Oscar Wilde; in my bedside bookshelf, adjacent to Elie Wiesel's Night and Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child--are stacked and strewn the remnants of my past futile attempts to "lighten up" my book list.

Let's see...I've got Rachel Ashwell's pastel-infused Shabby Chic--in hardcover, yet--which I bought during my short-lived (and very laughable) "I can do it--I can be a suburban housewife!" period in 2003. Then there's The Bitch in the House, a collection of Erma Bombeck-on-steroids essay-rants written by disgruntled wives, mothers, etc., which I bought the same year, when I'd had enough of the suburban housewife thing and tried to gracefully ease myself out of it. The book's binding has barely a wrinkle and I don't remember a word.

Why do I bother? It never works out, this light-seeking thing. The truth is, when it comes to literary pursuits, darkness is much more compelling, whether truth or fiction. Reading the dark stuff helps me write better, too. Sometimes it makes me angry--and that helps me write. Sometimes it makes me sad--and that is a writing catalyst, too.

So, I'll go back to reading The Lovely Bones and, when I'm finished, I'll tear into The Brother by Sam Roberts, a well-received biography of David Greenglass, the scum-sucking pig whose testimony--largely lies, he admitted, told to save his own ass and that of his atomic spy wife--helped seal the fate of his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, who died in the electric chair in the early '50s. After that, there's a controversial bio of Rasputin that I've got wait-listed.

Dark? Yes. But much more interesting than Bridget Jones's white granny panties.