"Guilt is the gap between belief and action." --mom/buddha

Maybe it's the sub-arctic weather we've been having lately, or maybe it's the changing of the seasons, or maybe the reading part of my brain has stopped working while the rest of my body works overtime to digest twelve pounds of pumpkin cheesecake, but lately, I haven't been able to get through a book to save my life. In the spirit of guilt-ridden slackerdom, here's an incomplete list of books I tried to read this week.

Suddenly--Bonnie Burnard. Call me crazy but I can't read anything where a character has cancer. It freaks me out! I start feeling lumps in places where there are no lumps! I become short of breath! I die!

Year of the Flood--Margaret Atwood. See above, but replace cancer with global warming. Come to think of it, I don't think I've read a new Atwood novel since Alias Grace. I think I can hear the citizenship cops coming to revoke mine.

Best Friends Forever--Jennifer Weiner. I love me some chick lit but I'm a little worried that ol' Weiner is a one-trick pony. Self esteem issues are awesome fodder but if she keeps writing books about overweight, partnerless women who do ridiculous things like solve mysteries or act as criminal accomplices I might hunt her down and punch her in the neck. (If you want to read her greatest work, though, check out her short story collection, The Guy not Taken. Funny and poignant chick writing at its best.)

What makes all this even sadder is that the only things I actually "read" this week were a back issue of House Beautiful magazine (there was a house inspired by The Big Chill! It was amazing!) and the audio version of The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult. Three words: illiterate torture porn. Seriously. And the worst part is that every time I try to read one of her books I lose interest after the disgusting pivotal deed is done (highschool shooting, date rape, take your pick!). I don't know who's worse, her or me.

I'm in a literary shame spiral. Help.