books books books books!!!!

Lacking the will to do anything about it, I hauled out my purse-size go-to-auction tape measure and discovered that there are nine feet of books on my bedside table. Granted, it's a large bedside table, an old mahogany tobacco twist parlor table with big top and a shelf below. But nine feet? That seems excessive, doesn't it?

In six stacks ~ four above and two below ~ there are cookbooks and novels and memoirs, travel books and language books, and of course a wide selection of books political. I am currently deep into The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom, and it fits my weepy mood. It is impossible to accurately put into words the wretchedness of slavery, but Grissom's book is a good effort, and her depiction of one mixed family's life is both inspiring and heartbreaking.

In between I'm trying to get through Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. Oh. Em. Gee. As seems to be the case with much of Trotsky's work, he is operating under the assumption that the reader is extremely well versed in world events of the early 1900s and fully acquainted with even the most obscure activists of the revolution.

Being anti-capitalist, I chose Trotsky from the boxes of classics I've rounded up to take to Mexico. I've successfully avoided classic literature since one hideous semester in high school spent reading Shakespeare. I'm a voracious reader, but not very discerning. The book has to grab me in the first chapter or two. But I thought I could improve my mind and possibly stave off dementia by plowing through these masses of books that everyone should have read by 53. And maybe I'll be able to concentrate if I've only got to get up, make coffee, and lounge on the porch all day.

So what about you? What are you reading these days, and are you looking for any books? I've got books and they've got to go. Media mail's cheap. Let me know.

whatcha reading?

Having been under the weather a bit, and utterly exhausted by the yapping of the newsheads on MSNBC and CNN and the rest, I have been reading more than my usual a lot.

Inspired by Al's recent posts on Naomi Klein's End of America, I gave up trying to find it at the library and it's just arrived from Amazon today. I did, however, snag her Shock Doctrine just yesterday, a book I've put off reading because I find it so horrifying.

On a more escapist note, I've just finished That Old Ace in the Hole, Annie Proulx's story of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, the wretchedness of corporate hog farms, and finding community in unexpected places. Wonderful, especially for anyone who's ever lived anywhere near the prairie.

I've just put Kiara Brinkman's Up High in the Trees, again thanks to Al. So since all of us loosely connected blogger folk have such great tastes in reading material, what are you reading? What have you just read? What do you recommend for the library list?