Back at the beginning of the year, I resolved to read more. You see, I have been telling myself for many years that I am a writer at heart and, in fact, the primary purpose of this blog was to flex my writing muscles while showing off my knitting. Yet, in all honesty, I hadn’t been reading very much. And since they tell us that reading is to aspiring writers as a mountain stream is to thirsty hikers, I set my goal this year to read a book a month. Surprisingly, it appears I am ahead of the game. So far I’ve read:
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (well written, accessible, thought provoking)
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen (absolutely amazing and thoroughly satisfying)
Stardust by Neil Gaiman (wow.)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (double wow.)
Bodies by Susie Orbach (clinically dense, but paradigm shifting)
Overcoming Overeating (clinical but what I needed to read at the time)
Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby (fun and enlightening)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (holy shit this guy is just… wow.)
And currently, I’m reading:
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (loving it!)
and
The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch (I’m reading this to Isaac and we are both enjoying every minute of it. Go now. Go get this book. But DON’T read it, it’s dangerous!!!)
Still ahead of me is the release of the next book of the Wheel of Time series (to be finished by Brandon Sanderson and to be three books instead of one–SQUEE!), in addition to:
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
A Bad Spell in Yurt by C. Dale Brittain
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Already I feel the stories coming together in my head, ready to be spun into something new. I can’t wait for November and NaNoWriMo.
Dear Reader, how has your summer reading been?
Thanks for the tip – I’ve just ordered “The Name of this Book is Secret” and “If You’re Reading This It’s too Late” for my niece.
As for me, I’ve read “The Lost Garden” which I’d recommend, “The Glass Castle” which I mostly liked but was getting tired of it by the end”. Now I’m reading “Gone Tomorrow” by Lee Child, and like all the Reacher books, it’s a page turner and I can’t put it down.
I’ve ordered “Old City Hall” by a local author to read next.
Nice work! Three Gaiman books down! You should read Good Omens at some point, because it was hysterical. I fucking love that man. He’s right up there with David Tennant. I should read American Gods this summer, given that I’ll never have time for leisure reading again, but I need socks for college, and I am not Molly Weasley. They will not knit themselves. [sigh] Maybe I’ll take the short story collections to college, and try to squeeze in a couple of them between Real Boys and The Developing Person Through the LIfespan. Stardust was short-ish, right? Compared to the frightening volume that’s been sitting on my desk for years now? Maybe I’ll take that, too. Maybe it’ll read itself.
Adrienne: I will loan you my copy of Stardust, if you’d like! Just let jen know and I’ll pass it to her to give to you.
Jen: I haven’t done as much reading as I am normally acustomed to. But last week I bought “the stepsister scheme”. I got about a couple chapters in and stopped because I got bored with it.
When I was sick, I plowed through the “riley jensen guardian” series (8 books of hot werewolf loving) by Keri Arthur.
Now I think I want to try reading Joyce’s Ullyses. I need to make a trip to the Library.
Ender’s Game is one of the best. I have read a lot of Orson Scott Card. Borrow any you want.
I just thought of something. Usually we associate “reading” with books. And I haven’t been reading much BOOKS lately, but I am still doing a LOT of reading, on the INTERNET. I think all the blogs and the news articles I read daily count as reading. And probably explains why I haven’t been reading much books. A brain can only absorb so many words, yanno?
Ooh, Little Brother was awesome. I highly recommend that one. I loved Enders Game, too.