Just now I did some quick pruning of the list of books I’m currently reading, and I realized it’s been a while since a book post on here. Time to change that. :) Here are the fifteen books I’m reading right now:
I’ve been dipping into the Chronology volume of Scull and Hammond’s J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, and it’s terrific inspiration for the writerly side of me. This is a long-term read, though.
E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is a nice piece of YA fiction that I’m reading and enjoying. Also in the YA category are Jerry Spinelli’s Love, Stargirl (which I really like, and I wish there were more Stargirl books, and yes, as a guy I feel really weird proclaiming that to the world, but what the heck :P) and Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart (which I also really like — it’s a book about books, after all :)).
Moving from YA fiction to non-YA fiction, I’m 70 pages into Connie Willis’s Passage (liking it so far — and I’ve loved the other Willis books I’ve read, like Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog). I just barely started Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (another book about books! Hurrah!) and Brandon Sanderon’s Elantris (this is my third time trying to get into it; hopefully I’ll make it further this time). I’m also reading Jerome K. Jerome’s hilarious novel Three Men in a Boat and slowly making my way through Dostoevksy’s The Brothers Karamazov, which I absolutely love. And in the theatrical end of things, I started Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie a couple days ago.
Now for non-fiction. I’m a chapter or so into Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and wow is it interesting stuff. I’m going to be reading the rest of his books. I’m a hundred pages into Robert Spolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir, which is a fascinating book about his studies of baboons in Kenya. Similarly, I’m a hundred pages into Gordon Thomas’s Gideon’s Spies, a riveting history of Mossad (Israel’s intelligence agency). I’m just over halfway through Jacques Lusseyran’s And There Was Light. He’s a blind Frenchman who made a big difference in the French Resistance during WWII, and it’s a very, very interesting autobiography. (Reading it has also made me feel that it actually wouldn’t be all that bad to go blind, to be perfectly honest.) Finally, I bought a copy of Montaigne’s Essays a few days ago and read the first essay last night. Mmm.
You know, early this past week I signed up for Netflix, thinking it would save me money. My first two DVDs arrived on Thursday and by yesterday I’d decided to cancel my subscription. Not only do I not watch enough movies as it is to justify the cost, but I’d much rather spend that time reading books instead.
Want to talk books? Email me — I can’t overstate how much I love talking about books. :)