A couple months ago I started putting together monthly book lists to keep track of the books I wanted to try at read that month. It seems a little obsessive, but having the list is nice because it reminds me of any review commitments or just books I’m excited about for some reason.
My list for May was pretty ambitious, and, unfortunately, I didn’t have a great reading month. I blame distraction getting ready for BEA (irony?) as well as the end of the TV season. I love, love, love to watch TV sometimes. But anyway, here’s what I finished in May, with books from my original list in bold.
On Friday afternoon I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, NPR MonkeySee’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, which was discussing upcoming summer movies the various participants were excited about. One person mentioned The Help, which will be coming out this August.
I knew the movie was coming out, but hadn’t seen a trailer yet, so popped over to YouTube to find one.
While I haven’t read either of Mortenson’s books, I’ve been following the discussions about this scandal because issues of truth in nonfiction are interesting to me. One particular article by Laura Miller in Salon — Why “Three Cups of Tea’s” lies don’t really matter — rubbed me the wrong way. While I agree with her central argument about the importance of the financial side of this story, Miller is too quick to dismiss the serious issues of Mortenson potentially fabricating parts of her story and discredits other hard-working and honest nonfiction writers in the process.
Others might disagree, but I don’t think a book that’s foodie fiction necessarily has to have recipes or even be about cooking. However, food does have to play an important role in the story — it needs to mean something to the characters or have a role in moving the plot along. For our next pick, I want a book with lush, delectable writing, stirring characters, and a story that’s made for sinking your teeth into.
In the wake of Borders closing down more than 200 stores, there have been a lot of posts of the piles of books people have have snagged during the sales. As much as I like seeing new book stacks and chiming in with which ones I’m most excited about, actually posting my own book piles seemed to depressing, like kicking a kid while they’re down.
This is a story about how a dare, an open-minded friend, and a bunch of unwanted books came together to create a new book club, tentatively called “Not So Great Expectations.”
The players in this story are me and my friends Kristin and Katjusa. Kristin works at an office that has a bookshelf of free books people regularly borrow from. The excerpts below are edited Gchat conversations from earlier this week.
I’m back in Minnesota this weekend to help celebrate my dad’s birthday. My sister, who goes to grad school in Iowa, is also home, so there’s a full house around here. Last night, we went out to dinner, then stayed up late playing a rousing game of Texas Hold ‘Em using Easter candy as money. That seems like a good idea, until you remember everyone in my family is stingy about chocolate because we love it so much. Oops.
And of course, because I am who I am, I had to check in with all of them about what they’re reading now.
I finished Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything a couple of days ago, and can’t wait to post my review of it next week. But, like most great nonfiction, there were a lot of anecdotes and facts that didn’t make it into the review and I wanted to share.
This section is from the chapter on “The End of Remembering,” the transition from a culture that valued memory to a culture that can’t seem to remember anything. One of the reasons Foer discusses is the proliferation of books — once we could write things down, it wasn’t that important to remember them. And as a result, the way we read started to change. Foer talks about this change in a way I think many book bloggers will find familiar.
If you could have a perfect reading month, what would it look like?
I felt awesome when I got done with my reading in January, but looking back at my reading in February, I’m not sure I’d call the month perfect. It was good — I read some books I liked a lot — but I didn’t get through as many as I’d like (only 7), and I don’t think the balance between personal/library/review books was what I’d want to have moving forward. Granted, I did decide to spend the month focusing on review copies, but I think in the long run that’s a bad plan.
So if February wasn’t awesome, what exactly would make a “perfect” reading month for me/
I’ve been thinking about re-reading this week. Maybe that comes from reflecting on my reading roots and reviewing a book that’s all about the process of re-reading, I’m not sure. All these thoughts haven’t really come together in any coherent way, but I did come across this particular quote and I wanted to share it with all of you.
