This week’s question from the Crazy-for-Books blog hop is…what I’m reading, right now. Right now I’m not reading anything, I’m writing a blog post.
At some point today when I finish this blog post, I will again be reading. Before I met my lovely husband, I was strictly a one book at a time kind of person. The idea of starting a new book before I had finished one was just kind of horrifying to me. I’ll confess that I’m also one of those people who has to eat all of each thing off of her plate before I can move on to the next thing, i.e. I have to eat all the green beans before I can move onto to the mashed potatoes (and usually I save the thing I like the most for last). There is probably a page in the DSM for this condition.
In my new life, I have several books going at a time. So, for several months I’ve been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. This is my comforting, meditative, last thing I read before bed book, which is part of my Happiness Project. There are some books you just shouldn’t read right before bed…like Room, for example.
Then I often have something kind of fun and relatively meaningless going. Right now it’s Elizabeth Peters’ second Amelia Peabody book, Curse of the Pharoahs. That’s just for fun, and to pick up when I’ve read something so weighty that it’s completely mushed my brain or caused some disturbance, like Room.
Last night I started As Always, Julia, which is a book of letters written from Julia Child to Avis DeMoto (and vice versa). I think I might have to start something else today, because As Always might be something to slowly meander through, and sometimes you need that book that pulls you through in two days (like Room just did) That book might be So Cold the River which is on hold at my local library for me (I love my local library), though a friend is also lending me Winter’s Bone, the novel upon which the movie is based today, so it could be a toss-up.
That answer turned out a lot longer than I thought it would. What are you reading and why?
Sounds like you've got some great reading happening! 🙂 I'm working my way through 2 books right now (and of course, have a stack of more books waiting). Happy hopping!
I have tried to read more than 1 book at a time, but I start to intertwine the characters and it turns into a big hallucination scenario! Especially if I read when I am tired, which is usually! This is my first book-blog-hop, and first comment! Thanks for the great post!
Kelly@TheLemmeLibrary
Well, I think we just passed each other in cyberspace: I added my current read for this bloghop as you were posting about Fires in the Mind! How wonderful that you read Mistry and Seth, etc. in relation to your India trip. Any Rushdie? He's one of my personal favorites, and also Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss.
Also, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has been one of those books I return to over and over again for solace, so we share that affinitiy, and my current read is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, so we also enjoy a good chef read. And I have Room on (long) waitlist at the library…
So: somewhat kindred literary spirits. Time to follow each other? I'll start!
I completely agree with you about As Always, Julia. It's great for being an ongoing, meandering go-to book. Fabulous women, delicious correspondence. Have you reviewed Room yet and I just missed it? Or have I just forgotten it?
here's mine http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2011/02/book-blogger-hop.html
I love the Amelia Peabody series. Those books are a wonderful respite from heavier reading.
I love Amelia Peabody! Seriously! And SO COLD THE RIVER is really good. What fun you will have!
Hopping by.
Good answer! The answer on my book blog is a little embarassing; it’s a book that’s been sitting on my TBR pile for a year.
To my shame, I only opened the book because I remember it contained an Amazon gift card.
All the sordid details on my book blog – http://www.howardsherman.net
Hop on over!
Howard Sherman
http://www.howardsherman.net
Hey thanks for checking out my hop. I followed you back.
I am a big Buffy fan. I was obsessed when it was on air and recently re-watched them all (thank you instant netflix) so I figured I'd check out the comics. It's hard to get used to but nice to at least have something new from the series. I try to read it in the actor's voices. They definitely made their characters.
Jo, yes, I'm quite enjoying my current selection, and thank goodness there's always a stack waiting.
Kelly Butcher, glad you joined the hop! That sounds kind of cool the way the characters all run together. I find that happens if I read two books fairly close together with a similar plot structure or setting. They get all tangled up and I can't remember which is which.
Laurie, good idea. I'm a new follower. I have read Rushdie, and something about him just doesn't take. My husband loves Midnight's Children and has taught it in a class several times. I was talking at my book group this week, and it's just something about the narrator in Midnight's Children I don't like. Rushdie's one of those authors I want to like, but just hasn't happened. I'm so enjoying Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek. I love Dillard's prose. It took quite a while for my local library to get Room for me, but it was worth the wait. I'll be reviewing it this weekend at some point.
Emily, I'm getting to Room this weekend. I read it fast and then I've been digesting, but it's really interesting sociologically, so I hope to talk some about what it says about the process of socialization.
Tribute Books Mama, thanks for hopping by and sharing your blog.
Ruth, Amelia is so fun, isn't she? After I read the first book I thought, well what's going to happen now that she's married, so it's interesting in the second book to find out.
Kay, glad to hear you enjoyed So Cold the River and Amelia.
Howard Sherman, nothing embarrassing about that. I bought The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver about a month ago and haven't touched it. Sometimes the moment just has to be right.
Definitely Maybe, I've re-watched the whole 7 seasons through several times. I find when I haven't for a while, I find myself missing Buffy. I see on Facebook that they might be making a movie without Joss Whedon but I don't want to think about it.
I've been missing BtVS so much that I've been searching all of the second shops in town to buy the entire series on DVD. So far I'm only missing season 4, which is not one of my favorite seasons anyway. I know the musical by heart and I regularly cry when watching certain episodes. I like to think that I'd love Buffy no matter when I came to her, but the show debuted in my first year of grad school when I was depressed as all git-out and that show was one of the few things that helped pull me out of that black sucking hole. Making a Buffy Top 5 list without reserving the right to perpetually revise it would be awful for me!
Robyn, in answer to your question on my blog…yes, we have a staff picks section in both our fiction and non fiction floors where each book has what we call a shelf tag–a paragraph or so about why the book is awesome. Most of my “Book Reviews in Brief” are the shelf talkers that I write for the books in my store. We're all supposed to write them, but somehow the Staff Picks section in fiction has turned mostly into the Emily Picks section.
If you ever want me to send you an ARC of something I've mentioned, I'd be happy to set up a book swap with you. Just let me know. Looking forward to your take on Room.
Hopping by to say have a great weekend!
New follower 🙂
Lu
http://quickquotesquills.blogspot.com/
Hopping through. New follower! I'd really like to read Always Julia!
My Hop
Lu and Allison, thanks for stoping by and for following!