Off the Stacks is a weekly-ish feature where I highlight a nonfiction book I’m curious about but will probably run out of hours in the day to actually read. I’m hoping that by highlighting titles this way, I can encourage other people to give the book a try, and, if it’s great, consider nominating it later this year for the Indie Lit Awards. Consider these books stamped with the “Sophisticated Dorkiness Seal of Curious Approval.”

Title: Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend
Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Nonfiction Type: History
Topics Covered: Rin Tin Tin, television, canines, pop culture, America

What It’s About: “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin” debuted on American television in 1954. However, the real-life story of Rin Tin Tin was not as glamorous as the perfect pup he played on the small screen. The real dog’s story begins on a World War I battlefield and leads to Hollywood and, eventually, the history books.

Why I Want to Read It: Susan Orlean writes beautifully and manages to find the extraordinary in everything she chooses to write about. While I’m not that into dogs, since I got my cat Hannah I am curious about books that explore the relationships between humans and animals, and I think this book will broach the topic in a fascinating way.

Who Else Might Like It: Dog lovers, tv fanatics, history nerds

Reviews: USA Today | Christian Science Monitor | NPR |

Title: The Soul of a New Machine
Author: Tracy Kidder
Genre: Narrative Nonfiction
Year: 1981
Acquired: Bought
Rating:

Two Sentence Summary: In 1981 computers were new, exciting, and mysterious. The Soul of a New Machine is an inside look at one company’s attempt to bring a new microcomputer to the market.

One Sentence Review: While some of the explanations of computer development and software coding went over my head, The Soul of a New Machine is a curious look back at a time when computers weren’t ubiquitous.

Why I Read It: I want to read everything by Tracy Kidder, and since this was his first major book I figured it was as good a place to start as any.

[continue reading…]

If you’ve been on Twitter much the last couple weeks, you’ve probably seen some posts about Book Riot, a mysteriously blank-looking site with the tagline, “It’s not a book club… it’s a movement.”

Now that it’s finally October 3 — launch day — get to help spread the news about what the site is since I’m going to be one of the regular contributors.

Book Riot aims to be a book news and commentary site that sits between a book blog and a more traditional, mass-market book site. The goal is to bring the personality and accessibility of blog writing and make it more mainstream – a site for people who love books, but might not have the inclination to subscribe to a hundred book blogs.

I got recruited to join by one of the co-founders, Jeff of The Reading Ape, and he’s collected quite an awesome group of bloggers and writers as contributors. Some that I know and admire include Rachel (a home between pages), Greg (The New Dork Review of Books), Wallace (Unputdownables), Kit (Books are my Boyfriends), and Rebecca (The Book Lady’s Blog). Quite the crew, right?

I have to admit, I’m a little intimidated by the project. I’ve never thought of Sophisticated Dorkiness as particularly funny or a place where rioting might happen, but I am looking forward to experimenting with a slightly more pumped-up voice to keep up with everyone else.

I’m not sure what exactly it’ll mean for things here. I expect to keep posting regularly, but there may be some cross-posting or connected content between the sites, since it’s not like starting a new project is going to leave me with more time to read. Either way, I’ll be sure to keep people here posted on what I’m writing there, since it’s still all me.

I’ve got two posts up right now — an adapted review of The Neighborhood Project by David Sloan Wilson, and an updated list of Five True Stories to Scare You Silly in honor of Halloween. On the whole, I’m excited, and I hope you’ll stop over and see what Book Riot is about.

September was a slow, slow reading month around these parts. And I started out so optimistic about my reading plans, too. I started the month with a list of nine books I was hoping to get read. I actually got through six books this month, which is not nearly the pace I was hoping for. Only three of them were books from my possible list (those in bold), but that’s ok — to do lists were meant to be ignored!

1. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
2. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harnach
4. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
5. Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson
6. Page One: Inside the New York Times edited by David Folkenflik

I did just finish a fourth book from the list, Big Girls Don’t Cry, yesterday afternoon, but since it was October 1 I don’t get to count it in September. Oh well.

I have an equally aggressive and unlikely reading list for October. The nice thing about this list is that it’s pretty heavy on the “books I want to read” and less heavy on the “books I have to read” — always a plus for me. Here’s what I’ve got…

Books I “Have” to Read

(Books that have a more firm obligation tied to them like choices for a book club, a book tour, or a freelance review)

• Tension City by Jim Lehrer, which I’ll be writing a freelance review for mid-month.

Books I Should Read

(Review copies being published this month [or books I missed in the past that I still want to get to], books from the library, or community reads I’d like to participate in)

• Monsters in America by W. Scott Poole, which is a book coming out this month that I’m also hoping to read for the RIP Challenge.
• What It Is Like to Go To War by Karl Marlantes, which I wanted to read last month but didn’t get to. It’s nice and short, so no excuses this time.
• Badasses by Peter Richmond, a history of the 1970 Oakland Raiders. I got it for review when it came out in hardcover but didn’t read it then. It’s coming out in paperback this month, so I’d love to get to it.

Books I Want to Read

(These are the random books calling my name from my shelves RIGHT NOW)

• The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Kilbanoff because Cass (Bonjour, Cass!) keeps telling me to read it and I finally have it from the library. It’s a looong book, so I’ll have to make some time for it.
• The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston, which I found while researching spooky nonfiction to read during October.
• Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum, which is also on my RIP reading list and should be awesome!
• Never the Hope Itself by Gerry Hadden, which is a book about life in Latin America post-9/11 by an NPR journalist… it looks so good.

Given my reading pace over the last month, I highly doubt I’ll get through all these books. However, there is Dewey’s Read-a-Thon coming up on October 22, which could help get through some extra books this month too. Last Read-a-Thon I decided to read only books I didn’t feel like I had to review, so I might pull an entirely different pile.

Honestly, is there anything more fun that putting together piles of books to read? I guess finishing books, but that’s not been happening around here much lately 🙂