What I'm Reading

I really want to call this "What Are You Reading?" but figure y'all will look at that title and go, "Eh, too much trouble." You know: it *is* effort to post a comment, and if all a blog post does is ask for information/recommendations/comments/some love, well. Who's got that kind of time and energy? The least the blogger can do is offer something of her own, right?

So here I am telling you about what I've been reading lately. While I am a relatively fast reader, I don't read quickly any more. I seem to remember a life, in some distant and hazy past, when I would pick up a book and sit down to read for an hour. When I had various Day Jobs with down time--breaks, off periods, fallow office hours--when I would take a book out of my bag and read. And when I would get home from work and unwind with a cup of International Coffee (remember those? I LOVED those!) and an hour of reading.

No longer. When you work for yourself and love what you do, you don't take a lot of breaks during the day. Or any, really. I stop to go walk, most days, but even that takes planning. If I do sit down (meaning: not at the computer working), I have a stack of books from my publisher waiting on me to read them and make little videos.

This is a long excuse about why it takes me so, sooooo long to finish a book, especially a longish one like this one, that I finally finished last night:

I really enjoyed this book, not so much because I'm a fan of Steve Jobs (I'm not--I like Apple's products, but I'm not much of a person fan) but because I really like Walter Isaacson's writing. I'd read and liked Einstein and so had a pretty good idea I'd also like this one. I did, and I think he did an excellent job of capturing the man--his talents and his quirks and a personality that makes me glad I didn't ever have to sit in a room with him. Man! What an ego he had to think he had the right to treat people the way he did. But you know what? He was right: people let him get away with it, and so he did. Since I didn't have to hang out with him, though, I'm very happy he was however he needed to be to do the things he did for Apple (I wasn't really interested in the parts about Pixar and stuff because I'm not a movie person). I have more musings about some of that that I hope to explore in a post sometime. Snort.

 When we went to Art is Petaluma last year, we went through about a gazillion airports, and in one of them--Portland, maybe?--they had an installation from the project that was Trappings. And I canNOT find a post where I mentioned it, and I am NOT going to spend more time looking. Here's a link to the book. What it was was a series of blown-up photos from the book with QR codes where you could listen to interviews--so of course I loved that. It's about women and the clothes they wear that make them feel powerful. On the one hand, I think it's a dumb premise: powerful? What does feeling powerful feel like? I don't think you can have just power; I think if you have power, you have power *over* something or someone else, and that doesn't interest me at all. It was, however, interesting to me to read what women had to say about their clothes, although a lot of it was very lame: predictable, boring, not inspired. Pretty much like most of their clothes, come to think about it. I like the premise, though, and it gave me another reason to really think about my own wardrobe, what I love, what I don't love so much, how I want to dress myself for the rest of my life (hint: no beige will be creeping in, nor will p-o-l-y-e-s-t-e-r). I'd recommend you look at a copy of this one before you buy it; it could easily not be for you.

 I ordered this book when I did the podcast with Jennifer New. I don't order a lot of books by people I talk to--I couldn't afford it: almost everyone has written a book; I'd have to take out a loan. But I really enjoyed The Journey is The Destination, by Kathy Eldon (his mom) and Jennifer's first book about him, Dan Eldon: The Art of Life, so I thought I'd get this one even though it's for young adults and I don't read much YA lit. This one just seemed like a regular adult book, though, with no dumbing down or cutesiness, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you're a fan of Eldon, you need this one. It's got some cool pull-outs--postcards, an iron-on patch (I think), Nick Bantok-ish kinds of enclosures. I liked this one a lot.

 This is a new North Light book by Thomas Mann. You might have seen my video of The Big Reveal of Tom's advance copy, also at Art Is Petaluma. You can watch it here. It's fun reading this and hearing Tom's voice in the text, and I always like reading books by people I actually know in real life. If you have any interest in learning to use a jeweler's saw, this book is definitely worth checking out--Tom knows sawing.

This is a home dec book by Robin Brown, of Magnolia Pearl (beware the music!). While lace and tea-dyed linen and old velvet are not my go-to decorating materials, I love this book and its over-the-top opulence, in large part because The EGE and I went to Robin's home studio and saw a lot these rooms in person--that's so cool, to see photographs of places and go, "Hey! I've been there! We ate at that table!" Not a how-to book, although it has a few techniques, it's mostly just eye candy and bits from Robin's life and work. Pretty cool--it made even me think about tossing some old silk over a lampshade. Briefly. If you love that style, you need this book.

So that's what I'm reading. I'm starting something new tonight, but I don't know what yet. One of these:

OK--now it's your turn. What are you reading? Do you love it?