whatchareadin?
What's on your bedside table, next to the sofa, what are you reading or planning to read? In keeping with my current obsession to get over this food obsession (insert smiley face right there), I'm reading It's Not About Food, but I'm also in the middle of The Velveteen Principles and a book about meditation and stress reduction. I just finished Chili Queen, which was great and which inspired me to hunt up a little info about chili queens of San Antonio. Almost forgot, I keep Stillmeadow Seasons by the chair in my sitting room. Gladys Tabor lived with her female lover and kept a farm for years. She's a grand writer and I love the idea of her. You?
posted by BigAssBelle at 3:38 PM
11 Comments:
Bedside table: Suffer the Little Children - the latest Donna Leon mystery. Since her first - 15 ago - she has become progressively darker in her themes and writing. This one involved illegal adoptions and is frankly depressing - but at least the Commissairo and his family still eat the most fantastic meals.
In my knapsack for that busride to work: Dark Fires - the latest J.D. Sansom mystery (I like a certain school of mystery writing) - very densely written and like the previous one hard to get into but once there... come on busride....
We've been going through books this week for the move - means some are being ... gasp... given to the second hand bookstore in town. Funny how many old friends are staying around though.
I'm reading Hanna Wolff's Jesus, the Therapist, Robert Karen's Becoming Attached, and some spy thriller. I just finished three great books: The Memory of Running, Boomsday and We Came to the End. Love to read, but none of these are on the bedside table because I cannot read in bed. I'm also trolling through bits and pieces of The Power of Positive Thinking. It's a veritable book orgy here in short-term disability land.
"the kid" (What happened after my boyfriend and I decided to go get pregnant) - an adoption story by Dan Savage. I picked it up after I read his latest "The Commitment" (Love, Sex, Marriage and my Family)
Ian Rankin's Resurrection Men, part of a dectective series starring Inspector Rebus. The series takes place in Scotland, and is an entertaining commute read. Good cop trying to infiltrate a crew of bad cops on the take kinda book. Loses a bit in translation, because even the most hardened UK cop speaks beautifully. Hard to see them as thuggish. I just keep picturing them all looking like Sean Connery in his good years, and Daniel Craig now. More often than not, wearing short kilts...
Currently: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Had read it in 10th grade, but don't remember a thing, and have been enamored of Wharton since reading The House of Mirth last year.
I have a HUGE pile of books I need to dig into though, so I better start reading faster. I think next will be either The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall-Smith, or Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai.
That chili-queen segment on NPR was great! I heard it whenever it originally ran, and the "food research project" of those two women ("The Kitchen Sisters") was great. I may need to get a copy of their book, since their radio segments were so damn entertaining.
Lynette, have you ever read any of Jill Conner Browne's "Sweet Potato Queens" books? I think your reference to "Chili Queens" made me think of The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, which is the only one I've read and is HILARIOUS. Somehow, I think she would be right up your alley, since I notice titles like The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel.
"Beowulf," translated by Seamus Heaney.
-Freddyinp'town
I've got a lot of books to read but no time due to my small son! But, I will get a chance next week and will start either, Jayne Williams 'slow, fat triathlete' or just bought, 'You can heal your life' by Louise Hay as someone recommended that. Also, found a cheap book called 'do I look fat in this' by Rhonda Britten. Aaaaiiiee... all self help type books and the triathalon one cause I'm doing one this summer and scared shitless! HA! I was going to pick up 'Bitter is the new black' by Jen Lancaster that someone said was a funny read. I think when I go to vegas to visit my friend I need a light, funny book!
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson, which is interesting though not as well done as Devil in the White City, Portrait of a Lady, I read a lot of James when I was younger and now I'm trying to see if I still like him as much now. I'm also rereading To Say Nothing of the Dog a very funny Sci-Fi about time travel and I have Archer Mayor's, St. Albans Fire on the back burner.
Wow this is great, all these book ideas! My bedside table book pile has spilled onto the floor. There's a pile of my old journals. Then there is Around the Year with Emmett Fox- a book of spiritual daily readings; The Choice is Yours and Inspired to Lose - both books from an organization called TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) Good books- one is true stories of weight loss, and the other more medical/science oriented about wieght loss. I am re-reading them for inspiration. Also - Forgiving and Moving On and then Twenty Four Hours A Day (more meditation books) Kind of revealing actually, the stuff by my bed.
In my heyday I might read 5 books a week, concurrently. Now a days, between all the reading for work, the periodicals (LATimes, NYTimes, Newsweek, New Yorker, The Nation, Smithsonian from cover to cover), and all the stuff available on the Internet, I hardly have time to crack a book open, however, currently open, Fast Food Nation and John McPee's huge tome on geology. Thinking about ordering a copy of David Halberstam's "The Best & The Brightest" as I think it may have a lot of lessons in it that need to be relearned.
I just finished MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides -- I blogged about it; it was brilliant.
I'm now reading a book I've never heard of by an author I've never heard of (PLAINSONG by Kent Haruf) just because it looked good in the store.
Being finished with grad school and reading what you want is the absolute best.
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