Reading List
Sep. 10th, 2008 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicI pulled Persuasion off the shelf last week to start reading in the doctor's office waiting room when I was sick, thinking I'd just get started and then save the rest of it for the plane ride to Oregon. Instead, I finished it the next day. And I'm a slow reader! I just got sucked in.
I had some B&N gift cards that were burning a hole in my wallet, so I bought Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors and Dry. I remember seeing previews and being interested in the RWS movie last year, but I never got around to seeing it. Now that I'm reading the book, I'll probably hate the movie anyway. But anyway they're both memoirs, and Burroughs writes a lot like Sedaris, except so far RWS is more novel-like than Sedaris' essays. But they do have the same sort of dark wit. I'm concerned, though, that I'm going to get too sucked into these and finish them both before our trip, too. I guess that wouldn't be the worst thing, but I have such a hard time with boredom on airplanes that it's very important to me to have a book that I can enjoy and that will last me for the whole ride. We're driving to NC and back this weekend for a bluegrass festival, so I might actually finish at least the first book on that trip.
I was planning to reread the Harry Potter series, starting with the first book, which would be excellent in air entertainment, except that I can't find my copy of the first book. I never owned 4 or 5, because I borrowed those from a friend, and all I can find now are 2, 6, and 7. It wouldn't break the bank to buy the missing ones, but it seems like a waste when I know I own the first one (although Jeremy may have taken it, now that I think of it...) or can borrow it from my mother-in-law. But my MIL is in Oregon and that won't help me with reading material for the trip there. Sigh. Also, having the Green Valley Book Fair so near me makes me feel stupid whenever I pay more than three dollars for a book. But dangit, the next run of the fair is while I'm away. :( Sigh.
I had some B&N gift cards that were burning a hole in my wallet, so I bought Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors and Dry. I remember seeing previews and being interested in the RWS movie last year, but I never got around to seeing it. Now that I'm reading the book, I'll probably hate the movie anyway. But anyway they're both memoirs, and Burroughs writes a lot like Sedaris, except so far RWS is more novel-like than Sedaris' essays. But they do have the same sort of dark wit. I'm concerned, though, that I'm going to get too sucked into these and finish them both before our trip, too. I guess that wouldn't be the worst thing, but I have such a hard time with boredom on airplanes that it's very important to me to have a book that I can enjoy and that will last me for the whole ride. We're driving to NC and back this weekend for a bluegrass festival, so I might actually finish at least the first book on that trip.
I was planning to reread the Harry Potter series, starting with the first book, which would be excellent in air entertainment, except that I can't find my copy of the first book. I never owned 4 or 5, because I borrowed those from a friend, and all I can find now are 2, 6, and 7. It wouldn't break the bank to buy the missing ones, but it seems like a waste when I know I own the first one (although Jeremy may have taken it, now that I think of it...) or can borrow it from my mother-in-law. But my MIL is in Oregon and that won't help me with reading material for the trip there. Sigh. Also, having the Green Valley Book Fair so near me makes me feel stupid whenever I pay more than three dollars for a book. But dangit, the next run of the fair is while I'm away. :( Sigh.
McKenzie has some bridge books he wants me to read...but that's like reading textbooks. It's okay a chapter at a time, but I certainly don't want to spend all day on it. So...tell me what books I simply must read. I really love memoirs, I won't read thrillers (nightmares), and fluff novels are dandy but I don't do romance.
Then again, if I do finish both of these Burroughs books, he's got two more I could buy. And I think there's still one Sedaris book I haven't read...
Peace.
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Date: 2008-09-11 05:05 am (UTC)If you have any interest in environmental books that are not dry and incomprehensible, I have some other titles: The World Without Us (http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221108966&sr=1-1) by Alan Weisman - starts with the premise that humans no longer exist on the planet, and what would happen to the planet (and the human made infrastructures) were we suddenly gone. Eye opening read. The Whale Warriors... (http://www.amazon.com/Whale-Warriors-Planets-Largest-Mammals/dp/B001C2FU82/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221109155&sr=1-1) covers one man's journey with the Sea Shepherd down to Antarctica to confront Japanese whalers. The writer goes in with eyes wide open, interested but not having drunk the kool aid that the people serving on the ships seem to drink. It was very well written, very well paced, and really vividly draws the picture of what's going on "down there". Right now I am in the middle of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (http://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221109328&sr=1-1) which draws the climate change situation in new ways that I had never really thought about previously. I'm entranced and terrified (though supposedly it has a hopeful ending - haven't gotten there yet).
So a few thoughts, anyway.
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:32 am (UTC)Also, I finished The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Luis Zafon) right before starting work, and that was a very good book. Kind of a mystery novel about a book, and how two seemingly disparate lives interweave, all in the shadow of post-WWII Spain. Really unique idea, and though I wasn't a fan of every literary trick used in the book, I thought it was well done overall.