Book Thursday: Cleansing the Mental Palate

(oops...this should have been posted yesterday. Alas.)

Normally, for Thursdays,  I would like to write about a specific book, reflecting upon the book itself and attempting to fit this book into some sort of larger picture. I have been doing a lot of reading these past few weeks and, although I did read some amazing books, I encountered a problem with reading that I found much more interesting.

After finishing Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, I found it incredibly difficult to do much of anything else much less read any other books. The book crippled me mentally. In a good way, of course. I felt trapped in London Below and, although I enjoyed it there, I wanted to leave before reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or The Things They Carried. HeLa cells and the Vietnam War are far from the sewers of London and the need to detach was obvious. I needed a mental cleanse. I enjoyed this book very much, but it wasn't my favorite book. I am not sure what it was about this book that struck me this way.

I tried reading children's books, writing down my thoughts, napping, but nothing could get me away from Neverwhere. Finally I had to just dig into my book. The thing is, though, that I didn't want to erase my thoughts and memories of Neverwhere completely. I am not sure how I hid them away in order to function normally, but I did. I suppose this is a good time to come up with an emergency plan: a way to cleanse my mental palatte after reading the next especially powerful book.

Here are a few images from the book. Have you read this book? Perhaps now you will. Please, tell me how you managed to escape from London Below (or Above!).