What I'm Reading

I don't get nearly as much reading done as I used to. For one thing, I'm pretty much ready to go to sleep when I get in bed--here lately that's about 1 a.m. If I can get there at midnight, I can get in an hour, theoretically. In practice, Moe often comes and lies down on me and purrs, and then it's pretty much all over. I don't read during the day--I wish I could get to the place where I could do that without feeling guilty, but the only way it ever happens as if I'm reading something work-related--either a magazine or a book about which I'm going to do a video. Maybe I should make that one of the resolutions for next year: spend more time reading. It just seems so self-indulgent, reading does.

So it takes me forEVER to finish a book. And I'm a fast reader! ("I'm an excellent driver.") I'm guessing that most nights I spend about 15 minutes reading, maybe less. That's ridiculous, isn't it, given how much I love to read?

So here are the current stacks by the side of the bed. I'm boycotting the local library and am ordering used books from amazon.com, which is where I got all of these except the one on the bottom, Quest, which was handed out at the author, Daniel Yergin's, lecture here this fall.

Why, you ask, am I boycotting the library? It got noisier and noisier and smellier and smellier--they're trying to lure more kids in (why, I have no idea--they say that computers and video games are the things on which they need to focus, rather than books, so it's not like they're interested in teaching kids a love of reading) and they have no plan in place for dealing with the daily influx of homeless (and, in Midland, with its 4% unemployment rate, "homeless" means drug-addicted and/or alcoholic and/or mentally ill), it was no longer a pleasant place. Then the new director, some young guy From Elsewhere, is problematic. An artist friend tells me he's gutted the fine art section, removing everything with images of nudes. I find this difficult to believe but, given Midland's climate and the fact that the librarian they fired was a liberal Jewish Unitarian Universalist who made real strides in creating a balance in the theology section, well. It may well be true. I haven't gone in to find out. I've loved that library since 1969, but they're ruining it. In the year before I quit going, the romance and religious fiction sections kept growing, and the only new biographies were celebrity and right-wing-wacko bios. Hence my boycott.

 The books on the left in this stack above are ones I read long ago and want to re-read, I think. If not, I'll pass them on. On the right are the ones in line--the top two are about Wallace Simpson and the Duke of Windsor--I was fascinated about them decades ago and read all I could find and now want to read about them again. Something in the New York Times about a bio to be released next year, I think, is what spurred this. I think Jennifer New was the one who mentioned Devotion, and she liked it so much that I ordered it. Next are a couple books on how the mind works--a perennial favorite topic. Then two books by Spencer Wells, an anthropologist and geneticist who also spoke at Midland College this fall. Diary of Helena Morley--I think I have this because I loved (and have read twice) One Art, the letters of Elizabeth Bishop; I've had it for years and haven't read it. Soldiers in Revolt--some DVD we watched mentioned this. Then there's Jennifer New's new young adult book about Dan Eldon, Safari as a Way of Life, which I ordered before I talked to her, and then Trappings: Stories of Women, Power, and Clothing--this is a cool story: we were in some airport. Maybe San Francisco? Portland? (OK--Portland; I looked it up. Go here to see what I saw). I don't remember--and they had a display of photos of women wearing their "power" outfits. And--woot!--there was a QR code. I scanned it, and there was a video. It was all based on a book, and I hunted down a book kiosk at the airport and checked out the book. I didn't buy it--it was like $30, and I had no desire to carry one. more. thing. on the plane. But I came home and ordered it and can't wait to read it. Well, I guess I *can* wait. Obviously.

At the bottom is Quest, about oil. They gave away cases of this book when Yergin spoke here-one of the local independent oil companies ordered them and handed them out to everyone who came. Hundreds. You can imagine how envious I was--they did that with my book at Authors at Google, but there were *not* hundreds of people. Not quite.

 I adore these Best Of books and order them every year, except I wait and order them a year later, so I can get them used and cheap. I don't get them all--I love best the science and nature and, next, the travel writing. I get the essays, too, but reading those is like work, as my critical brain gets involved and I have to slap myself to keep from taking notes.

 Someone mentioned Macaulay's How Things Work, and so I had to get it. Haven't even looked at it yet. I got the Steve Jobs issue of Time because I know nothing about the guy and wanted to know more. I've ordered the biography, as well. Some of the reviews were scathing, but I've read Walter Isaacson's bio of Einstein and liked it, so I'm going to give it a try.

 In the stack above, also on the same little table, are my favorite poets--Mary Oliver and Billy Collins, and then, below those, books I've had for a long time and haven't read. Then Blue Highways, which I read decades ago and thought I'd try again.

 Then there are these that I've finished. I watched the TED talk by Jack Horner and was entranced (go watch it if you haven't already). I read his online bio and loved it and ordered these. Alas, he (they--he has help, which always makes me suspicious--I want to know exactly who's writing the books I read) focuses too much on the digs and exactly where they were and exactly who was there doing what and doesn't tell enough about what they found and what it might mean. I got really bogged down in these--like a list of the names of geographical locations and people involved, and if you're reading after midnight, boring stuff like that isn't going to do much to hold your interest.

This is the one I most recently finished, and I was really disappointed in it. It's a New York Times #1 Bestseller, for crying out loud, so you'd expect riveting. Amusing. Educational. Thought-provoking. While it was OK, it lacked focus and seemed really self-indulgent, and here's why: there are some books, seemingly more and more all the time, perhaps in part thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love (the author, in the current O Magazine, tells about how she got rich overnight and actually bought houses for people) in which people decide they want to do something--research cooking, or go to Paris, or take up hang-gliding, and then decide that if they wrote a book about the experience, they could write off the experience/trip/expense PLUS make a ton of money on the resulting book. Wow. The problem with this is that they don't really care about writing the book--it's never about writing the book. It's about the experience, and the writing part is just sort of a chore that has to be finished. If you don't care passionately about writing the book, please don't. Please write blog posts instead, or emails to friends, or--better yet!--tweets. Don't waste your time and ours writing about something just because you can write off expenses and make some money (and, you secretly hope, get a movie deal).

So these last three are going to Starbucks this evening. They'll have their little notes on them and be ready for someone else to decide whether or not it's worth their time to read them.

What are you reading that you really, really love?