Geek in the pink

I'm on a total book fix these days. I just can't get enough. I stop reading only to go to my required radiology clinical duties and for sleep, but otherwise I'm reading up a storm. I just finished The Book Thief - which was absolutely beautiful and touching. You know how for those thicker novels, you start to skim paragraphs, reading-comprehension-test style? Not for this story - I read every sentence, drinking in every word, every nuance, like a cactus in a desert. A beggar at a buffet. A tween at a Justin Bieber concert. You get the idea.

I read half the book in one sitting, before realizing that the faster I read, the quicker the ending loomed. And I really didn't want it to end. I didn't want to leave this marvelous world. So I started rationing out how much I was allowed to read each day. One chapter a night. Ten pages. Two. And then, before I knew it, I had come to the end, with only blank pages left to thumb through. It made me smile, it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it really made me appreciate life and all the words within it.

Anyway, that was a lot of exposition for this: I need another book to read. So as any sensible person in want of a book would do, I went to the bookstore (never mind that said bookstore was located next to the electronics section of Target), where I stumbled upon this.

The back reads thusly -

Once upon a time, there was a young psychiatrist called Hector who was not very satisfied with himself...And so he decided to take a trip around the world, and everywhere he went he would try to understand what made people happy or unhappy.

Combining the winsome appeal of The Little Prince with the inspiring philosophy of The Alchemist, Hector's journey around the world and into the human soul is entertaining, empowering, and smile-inducing - as winning in its optimism as it is wise in its simplicity.

1. The main character is a psychiatrist.
2. It's being compared to The Little Prince, my all-time most favorite book. (The English version.) (My apologies to Mr. Kirkeby, my beleaguered high school French teacher who could never get me to stop speaking Franglais long enough to fully appreciate the beauty of foreign literature. Or rather, never got me to understand enough French words to fully appreciate French literature. One day. But not really.)
3. Smile-inducing? In the ever-succinct words of Buddy from Elf, "I just like to smile - smiling's my favorite!"

Are you serious? It's almost as though this book were written just for me!

So this is what I'm reading now. I've made myself a cozy little reading nook: my warm humidifier acting as an apartment-approved replacement for an open fire, turtle chair donated by one GirlFromHawaii, and plenty of hot cocoa in a pink space princess mug.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.