Juggling

Like so many of us, I am juggling 'reading' in three different formats. Beloved paper, ereading with the Kindle Touch, and audio books.
Regarding the audio books, I do best with fiction, that is light on the ear and dialogue-driven. The work that begs to be savored and  reviewed, is frustrating. Right now I am with Erik Larsen In the Garden of the Beasts, a narrative of an American diplomatic family in 1930s Germany. A few years ago I absorbed his Devil in the White City with squeamish pleasure.
My ereading is an odd mix, mostly what I have picked up for free or as an Amazon special. Right now it is the current Best American Mysteries of 2011. Short stories have appealed to me since college. I admire their compact pleasures, particularly suited for people who can only read in short bursts.  I pick up my current reading choices in short stories from the radio. I am a huge fan of Selected Shorts, and New Yorker Fiction podcasts. Ron Carlson, Sherman Alexie, Stuart Dybek, Aimee Bender, and Tobias Wolff to mention a few, are some of my current favorites. As I mentioned. I became a fan of short fiction in college, but I remember with much warmth my discovery, probably in middle school, of O.Henry's pleasures. I have about a half dozen very old hardback editions, before they pretty much disappeared from used book stores and book fairs.

fall is for reading

First let me say that I have joined some of the cool kids, (or maybe I am feeling just somewhat un-stodgy) because I have been living in Neverwhere during my commutes the past week. What's more the master himself has been doing the narration.

When I am not there it is 1920s Berlin, a City of Shadows, which was not a pleasant place at all. A Franklin has woven a thriller involving Anna Anderson the alleged Romanov survivor, and a trail of madness she creates.

Recently I finished Gladwell's The Tipping Point - funny how I have recently heard references in media more since it has come to my attention. It's is not so much groundbreakingly new but full of interesting perspectives. Isn't that what the best books do? Make you think and look at life differently?

And, Picasso's War - is a thorough exploration of the impetus, creation and history of his masterpiece Guernica (which is pronounced gair-NEE-kah) Not totally sure of the timelessness of the painting, it is less that 100 years old. But I do know that images in books or online in no way do justice to a work like this, especially one this large. Yeah, seeing Pollock's work in person at the Tate Modern taught me that.

I am considering the Electric Michelangelo and Colum McCann's Zoli next but who knows? I think Harry Dresden is calling me.

A moratorium, maybe

My shelves are bulging, I can't find what I want and sometimes I stumble across a book I forgot I owned.

So I have resolved to stop or drastically decelerate my acquisitions, and try to prune. A select few will go to A's or her Robert's Christmas box, some to the Online Paperback exchange site and a few just to Goodwill because they are dated (but not too much).

OK, but what will do to celebrate the semi annual educator's sale at Borders? Hmm, not the blowouts that A and I would do, but something special. :-)

Since Christmas I have read a few that I promptly turned to the Paperback Exchange people and several have been snapped up quickly. Salvage, I could not get more than a third of the way through and gave up. It went quickly, must have been on someone's wishlist. Wish them luck.
I also finished Holy Fools by Joanne Harris and The Painted Kiss, an imagined bio of one of Gustav Klimt's close female friends. Neither can I recommend.

I have finished most recently, Horseshoes and Holy Water (I think that is the name) It had great potential but Mefo Phillips really isn't very good at writing, just recording. But it got snapped up immediately on my exchange site. Then I went back and finished Boorstin's series of essays, Cleopatra's Nose. Lots of food for thought without being too discursive and heavy.

I am now working on an art related thriller that A picked up for me The Art Thief. A fun read, it seems, not at all heavy, but not insultingly fluffy either.

Story time

I went through a reading slump recently. It just seemed to take me forever to get through a volume - of my own choosing of course. But now I leaped through a few light reads to get back into a nice rhythm. No heavy non-fiction at the moment.
Recent books include - Tethers End by Margery Allingham, Second Horseman by Kyle Mills, School of Essential Ingredients, The Sidewalk Artist, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and now Oliver Twist.

I know the characters from the musical we performed in high school, but not the book, oddly enough. Like his other books, David Copperfield comes to mind, it takes a few pages to get used to the style, the extended sentences and wordiness, but there are fewer characters to sort out. But what strikes me most right now, about one third through the book, is the very black and white-ness. I get the class thing - you just did not cross the class lines. BUT Dickens is painting a very stark picture of morality. If you did one crime, petty or major, your soul was painted dark forever by society. Perhaps this will evolve as the story unfolds. We will see how much room Dickens allows for forgiveness and redemption on an individual level.

adrenaline rushes

The big-time thriller is not a reading genre that I want to cultivate, but I did get sucked in recently to Kyle Mills's work. It started with a review that I read of Fade. I picked it up (cheap), buzzed through it and passed it on, but it was an exciting trip. Next is Second Horseman.

The Slavs and their detectives are usually so dour and dreary. Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall - sooo depressing. I liked Smilla's Sense of Snow but Hoeg hasn't really come up with anything since that has caught my attention. But - I have recently caught up with the Reykjavik mysteries by Arnaldur Indridason. Started with Jar City and then I found a whole slew at BookCloseouts.

I have been getting a lot of my reading direction these from Powell's Daily Dose. When I have no time for browsing online or in the store, this daily email has taken me down some unexpected paths.

and the stack keeps growing

as the tired old saying goes, "so many books, so little time"

Recent months have included some memorable, some not, some that are just plain fun.
Fun includes Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories by Jean Shepherd. Shepherd is the comic mind behind the classic movie "A Christmas Story" or as Anissa and I refer to it "Ralphie." He was a radio, cabaret personality for years, so this begs to be read aloud, or at least to imagine it being read aloud. Although it is a memoir written as an adult looking back, he views this as a child and teenager, with little reference to the world situation at the time, only as it applied to him and his world. And even though his memory is selective, the detail and tone are painfully and sweetly on target - funny for those who remember that vanished innocent world, and even those who experience only through the movies or these pages.

Meanwhile I have started reading Knucklehead - another memoir written for gr 4-7. It, too, is best read aloud, between fits of laughter. What else could you expect from the creator of "The Stinky Cheese Man"?

Foundation Trilogy

I am nearly finished with Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I was well into it before I began looking at Amazon's reviews. Yes, we all know it is an award-winning science fiction classic, but is it worth reading? Can it still be appreciated either as an ancestor to current works or stand on its own?

Amazon (any yahoo that chooses to log on) has lots of naysayers (as an aside, one deranged soul claimed that Sgt Peppers was antiquated pap compared to Michael Jackson's genius. Another claimed that Wee Sing Silly Songs was Christian propaganda that should never be allowed near impressionable, yet free-thinking children)

Anyway I take these reviews with a grain of salt. And while the trilogy has its flaws it is a remarkable and enjoyable product of its time. I am not enough of a fan of science fiction to appreciate its place in the galaxy but as a good yarn, it was time well spent. I am not sure how soon I will reread it, though.

In the meantime, I have gotten sucked into two Dresden Files books, and the first of the Outlander series. Guilty pleasures. I do love a good storyteller!

Gilead

A book that almost begs to be read aloud. Robinson's use of language is so authentic and umm, lyrical at the same time- I am not sure that is the word I want but it is close. I usually read for the story, but Gilead does not have a plot. It is the voice of an old man, a preacher who is trying to capture and write his memories - which are pretty much his only legacy to his small son. He meanders a bit, even repeating himself, just like an old person would do.

I am surprised how the book does hold your attention. Now you would think an old preacher would be pretty dull and stuffy, especially since he came from a whole family of them. However, the conflict between his father and grandfather, is intriguing, in fact an interesting reflection of the times.

I am sure the idea of reflecting on the precious and fleeting qualities of this world as one prepares to leave it, have been explored by many before. That's OK, the author manages (so far) to keep the voice real, something that can be tough when tackling a topic that is not part of everyday conversation.