ka

~ being in a conference room with 12 people who understand my work

~ learning cool stuff

~ lunch with a new-to-me colleague

~ easy flights

~ about 100 pages of a good book

~ following the Dalai Lama on twitter

~ being home

~ safe travels

~ waiting: confessions of a waitress

~ kitties

~ watching movies in bed

~ spontaneous hug at the bird food store

~ summer fruit (strawberries, blackberries, peaches, watermelon!)

~ perfectly timed email

~ good pilates class

~ help with heavy stuff in the trunk of the car

~ re-reading favored books

books in the finished pile:

Breaking Dawn (the last book in the Twilight series took the least time to read - a bit obsessed one may say)

Sundays in America


books in the now-reading pile:

Bush at War (it's been so long since I read this that I'm probably going to have to restart it)

Mean Little Deaf Queer (on loan from library, dreadfully overdue)

My Stroke of Insight

books in the car (formerly known as the purse book - for reading while in social places when I don't have another book with me):

Kings of Nonfiction (edited by Ira Glass)


books obtained since previous post:

Sing Them Home

Spontaneous Healing

I did the book list somewhere else, but then friends started doing reasoning - and I just couldn't let it go.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
I read this book before I was emotionally ready to understand what the crime really was. I remember getting it from the very small library in my home town. I remember the weight of the hardback, and the smell of the pages. I remember wanting a daddy like Atticus. I read it again in high school, for an interactive book report. I can't remember much of what I said, but out of character for me at the time... I made the whole class laugh.

2. The Firm - John Grisham
I picked up the paperback to read on a plane ride to Germany. I still have the paperback on my shelf, able to open it anywhere and read a few chapters. It was a better story before the movie was made. Now I have a hard time reading it without seeing Wilford Brimley.

3. 1984 - George Orwell
I bought a cheap paperback copy of the book while I was in college. I read a few chapters and quit reading (for reasons that I forget). It wasn't until I borrowed the audio version of Animal Farm from the Central Arkansas Library that I remembered the book on the shelf. This book is on my mind often. I'm often saying that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, or that our office only brews the best Victory Coffee. If you haven't read this book, read it this year.

4. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
When I first made the list I thought, mistakenly, that it contained my favorite Silverstein poem. (Crowded Tub: There are too many kids in this tub. There are too many elbows to scrub. I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine. There are too many kids in this tub.) However that poem is in his earlier work, A Light in the Attic. Rather than change the book in the list, I just remembered my favorite poem from Sidewalk: Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out.

5. Harry Potter #1 - JK Rowling
I found the series much later than others in my peer group. I was able to purchase book 1 in paperback. I think I read it while living at home after returning from Arizona. It was a delightful break from reality. Like books about hobbits (but not as confusing), it's an immersion in an alternate world.

6. Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
We read this in high school english. I remember struggling with the writing. There were sections that I just could not understand. Aside from Shakespeare and Melville, this is right up there on the ultimate frustration list.

7. Dark Tower series - Stephen King
When something is really important to me, I lose the ability to express how I feel. Dark Tower was life changing for me, in a literary and a spiritual sense. All serve the Tower. All serve Ka.

8. Beach Music - Pat Conroy
I think I first read this when I was a postal worker, borrowing the audio tapes from the local library. The words and phrases that Conroy uses are beautiful. He understands the pain in a family from mental illness. Eventually, I got the paperback (and later the hardback). I was delighted to read the whole story, and not just the abridged version on the tapes.

9. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Another book that I heard before I read. I borrowed the set from my favorite boys. I just about wet myself when I listen to "Jesus Shaves". I'm so excited to be seeing David Sedaris in October.

10. Rose Madder - Stephen King
This may be the first story I've known where the woman who starts the book with no self worth or power - takes back her life (or an infinitely better version of it). It doesn't hurt that the book has an Indigo Girls concert. Yet again, I heard the story on audio before reading it in print (with Uncle Stevie reading all the Norman chapters).

11. Bush at War - Bob Woodward
I would have never read this book had I not gone to a Clinton School of Public Service lecture by Woodward. I was fascinated by his lecture, and got the first book in the series from the library. I was entranced. I couldn't read the book in the library timeframe, so I snagged it from amazon.

12. The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries - Marilyn Johnson
I have a fascination with obituaries. This book just enhanced it. As a note, not many obituaries actually say that the person "died".

13. Goodnight Opus - Berkeley Breathed
I wanted something on the list by Mr. Breathed. I couldn't pick from the Bloom County books (because they are all fabulous) - so I went with my favorite of his children books. Mr Breathed has a special talent for illustration and comfort. You should find a copy, just so you can read everything on the copyright page.

14. The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
Oddly, a book about a woman grieving for her husband, is a good book to read while dealing with grief.

15. Here If You Need Me - Kate Baestrop
She's a chaplain. She provides comfort to strangers in trouble and to her warden service coworkers. I can't remember where I heard about this book. (NPR? Bas Bleu? library shelf?)

given that my last book-tagged post was last January, this post should be long

but it's not

Many of the library books that I've checked out, I've forgotten.

Books in the "finished" pile
The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Pete & Pickles by Berkeley Breathed

Books by the bed

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Called Out of Darkness: a Spiritual Confession by Anne Rice
(yuck - it's going back to the library and I'm only in Chapter 2)

The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
(I picked it up because she wrote The Wife, my purse book for about a year.)

Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
(I got it in Virginia, because I finished my knitting, and wanted something to read on the plane. So far, I love it.)

Book sadly returned to the library due to short check-out time and long hold list:

The Oxford project / photographs by Peter Feldstein ; text by Stephen G. Bloom

Book quickly returned to the library due terrible writing

The Unlikely Lavender Queen : a Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming by Jeannie Ralston

Two more books in the "finished" pile:

Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-something Who Learned to Knit After He Split by Laurie Perry

Here If You Need Me by Kate Baestrup

Requested at the library:

A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas

The Simple Home: the Luxury of Enough by Sarah Nettleton and Frank Martin

By the Bed:

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson

In the purse (for reading while stuck in restaurants, while waiting in long lines, while at the doctor's office, etc):

The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

One more book in the "finished" pile:

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman

Fresh from Amazon (thank you!):

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson

By the Bed:

Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-something Who Learned to Knit After He Split by Laurie Perry

In the purse:

The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

I pre-ordered from Amazon so I could get the book cheap.
It arrived in the mail yesterday, but I was out with my mom for most of the day.  I got the box out of the mailbox around 8 pm.
I read the last two pages, and put it aside.
I read the first two pages before falling asleep.
I have no desire to rush.

I'm on track to read four books this year!
The latest completion: On Call


Book I've got on the bedside table now:  Wasted