If you take out the Read-a-Thon, October was another relatively slow reading month around these parts. I finished 10 books total, but four of them were part of the Read-a-Thon. In months past, I’ve finished 10 books easily, but since moving and taking the new job my reading pace has slowed pretty dramatically.

How long do you suppose it will take for me to admit that I’m read slower now and start to accept a new normal book-finishing pace?

Anyway, enough with the whining. Here’s what I finished in October (with reviews linked when finished):

• Big Girl’s Don’t Cry by Rebecca Traister
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
• Monsters in America by W. Scott Poole
• Tension City by Jim Lehrer
• Badasses by Peter Richmond
• Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum
• Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham
• The Impostor’s Daughter by Laurie Sandell
• When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
• The Taliban Shuffle by Kim Barker

Overall, that’s a solid month of reading. I like that there was a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and a mix of “required reading” and things I just wanted to try. It is, however, light on review copies, which might have to change and I have any hope of getting caught up on the massive pile I’ve started to accumulate.

As for November, I’ve decided not to actually make a reading list. I do have a pile of books pulled out that I’m thinking about reading, but I’m not going to limit myself to those choices if I feel like reading something else.

I am, however, going to try to read more of my own books this month. I’ve been using my local library a lot since I moved, but I want to start getting through the books I already have because the unread piles are starting to stress me out. I counted yesterday morning and I have more unread books that read books on my shelves, and I have more unread books than I can possibly finish in a single year. Even if I spent all of 2012 reading just my own books, I wouldn’t finish them all.

This has never been something that really bothered me until I started getting addicted to home organizing and minimalist living blogs. Don’t even get me started on how many of them I read and what they’re doing to my brain other than making me see my stuff as oppressive rather than a joy. I did a big clean out of my read bookshelves on Saturday and got rid of some that I don’t see myself re-reading or passing on, but I can’t bring myself to purge the unread books without giving them a shot first… so that’s a priority for the rest of 2011.

What are your reading plans for November and December? Can you believe it’s almost 2012? That’s ridiculous!

It’s been a weird week around here. I got a strange cold/fever thing on Monday which kicked my butt for most of the week. I still had to do everything I’m supposed to do at the newspaper, which left me with no physical or mental energy outside of work to do much except watch television and do a little reading. Getting an extra hour of sleep today was amazing.

I must be on the mend, however, because I managed to finish two books this weekend — The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write about Real Sex by Erica Jong. I wouldn’t normally talk about such different books together, but it struck me as interesting that I’d read books so focused on relationships and sexual propriety (with such obviously different takes on it) right after one another.

The House of Mirth is Edith Wharton’s first major book, published in 1905 and set in New York in 1890 among the city’s ruling class. Our protagonist is Lily Bart, ” a woman who is torn between her desire for luxurious living and a relationship based on mutual respect and love.” She’s beautiful, charming, and of good social standing, but rejects or sabotages many proposals (that would bring money or love, but not both) through some questionable decisions.

The book is a “novel of manners,” which makes it entirely preoccupied with how people see each other and the propriety of certain actions. For a book with absolutely no explicit sex, the characters lives are completely dictated by what is and isn’t appropriate sexual behavior. Something as simple as going to a man’s private room or spending time with a married man is enough to throw Lily entirely out of her current social circles.

The misunderstandings and rumor mills in the book are ridiculous, but on the whole the story was fun to read. I had to move through the book really slowly to be sure I was getting all of the  implications and innuendo that were going on, but I liked that. It’s not a book for the impatient reader, I imagine, but for my first experience with Wharton I was definitely pleased. I think I’ll probably grab The Age of Innocence Next.

[continue reading…]

BAND — Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees — is a group organized to promote the joy of reading nonfiction. We are “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” and we want you to join us. Each month, a member of BAND hosts a discussion on their blog related to nonfiction. I am woefully behind in participating (shame!), but after this I’ll be caught up in time for our November topic next week. 

The host for our October nonfiction discussion was the awesome Ash of English Major’s Junk Food who asked about her favorite form of nonfiction — anthologies — and asked us to share some of our favorites.

I have always wanted to be the sort of person that gets into essay collections. I can’t tell you the number I’ve bought over the years, vowing to start reading them right away, that then take a neglected place near the bottom of my unread books shelf. I’m addicted to buying nonfiction anthologies, but can’t seem to actually read them.

Some of my favorites to buy are books in the Best American series — Best American Food Writing, Best American Essays, Best American Magazine Writing... the list goes on. I went and pulled all of the ones I could find on my bookshelves right now, and here’s what I have (which doesn’t include the pile on my bookshelves at my parents’ house):

• The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink
• Best Food Writing 2007, edited by Holly Hughes
• The New Kings of Nonfiction by Ira Glass
• Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace (I have at least three other years from this series)
• Sugar in My Bowl by Erica Jong
• The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Marjorie Williams
• Bookmark Now: Writing in the Age of Information Overload by Kevin Smokler
• Journalistas, edited by Eleanor Mills
• Major Modern Essayists by Gilbert H. Muller and Alan F. Crooks
• Fame and Obscurity: Portraits by Gay Talese by Gay Talese

BAND — Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees — is a group organized to promote the joy of reading nonfiction. We are “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” and we want you to join us. Each month, a member of BAND hosts a discussion on their blog related to nonfiction. I am woefully behind in participating (shame!), but I’ll be catching up over the next two days before our November topic is posted next week. 

The host for our September nonfiction discussion was Cass of Bonjour, Cass! who opened up a discussion about her love of nonfiction audio books.

I admire people who can listen to audio book while cleaning or doing dishes or folding laundry or working out… but at this point I just seem to not be one of those people. The only time I tend to get really into audio books is when I’m driving, particularly for long distances.

When I lived in Madison and often drove back to see my parents in Minnesota, I could finish an audio book on one trip. Perfect! Now that my drive from where I live to where my parents live is shorter, I can’t quite get a book done on a single trip. Consequently, I’ve started a couple nonfiction audio books recently, but just never got around to finishing them.

The first was The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, his account of the founding of Facebook that was the basis for last year’s movie The Social Network. I got through all but the last discs of this one… but then didn’t bother to finish it. I can’t pinpoint a particular reason either, other than, perhaps, having seen the movie and read a lot about Facebook, I already sort of knew enough about what happened to make finishing seem unnecessary.

The second was Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray. Again, a really fascinating subject: the baffling case of a mysterious hijacker who jumped from a plane with $200,000 and disappeared. I’m not sure why I haven’t finished this one either; I just haven’t felt compelled to make adjustments to my everyday routine to fit audio books in and don’t see myself grabbing the book again on my next car ride unless someone gives it a huge thumbs up.

Honestly, I’m disappointed by my dwindling interest in nonfiction audio books (or really, audio books in general), since I’ve always found them a great way to knock books off my TBR pile when I’m stuck doing an activity that’s less fun than reading.

That said, Boyfriend and I are planning a vacation over Thanksgiving that will likely involve more than 15 hours of driving over five days, so we’re open to suggestions. What is one audio book (fiction or nonfiction) that you could not stop listening to?