What is girl reading now?

I was over looking at my goodreads.com page and realized that I'm currently reading eight books. Jeesh even I think that is too many to be reading at once.


The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker:
I think this book is really, really interesting. However it is also really long and a little dense. I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but my dad talks about this Pinker guy all the time. And I find linguistics pretty interesting. That being said I have been "reading" this book since last year. I did actually just read one of the chapters about a month ago. I'm determined to finish it. Some day.

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach
This is another book I started last year and another that my dad gave to me. It's a knights of the round table story that I cannot enjoy for the life of me. Some passages are pretty clever but I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to finish this, even though I only have like two chapters left. For some reason I own two copies of this book.

The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 byEric Hobsbawm
I got on a little history kick lately and am actually really enjoying this book. I haven't made it too far because I keep leaving it in weird places all over my apartment. I found it the other day in my cupboard with the plates.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 ed. Dave Eggers
I keep forgetting I'm reading this. I loved the list of hobo names.

McSweeny's Issue 18
This is my at work book for my lunch breaks since I finished IV by Closterman. I've just made it through the first piece which I liked so I hope the rest is as good.

A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin
Oooooh I like this book. I've been picking up a lot of stuff by Nin lately, even though this will be the first I've ever read. Hot stuff.

2666 by Roberto Bolaño
This was recommended to me by a couple of different people. This book is freaking huge. I'm only about 100 pages in, but I really, really am enjoying it so far. Of all the books I'm reading right now, this is the one I'm most excited to finish.

Katherine by Anya Seton
This is my book club book for the month. So far I think it's pretty good. A love story in old England with the knights and kings and horses and plagues and whatnot. Always a good time (except in Parzival). It has been awhile since I've picked up some historical fiction and this seems like a step up from Phillipa Gregory.

So I'm not sure that I'm going to finish all of these anytime soon. The last three for sure will be done soon - or at least this summer in the case of 2666.

Also, I'm looking around for a new bookshelf. Any ideas?

suicide...by tiny, tiny increments

High Fidelity has been sitting on my shelves for not too long. I picked it up and read it one Sunday.

I loved the movie; it's one of those I could watch over and over again. John Cusack helps a lot. But I really love talking about or hearing about people's connection with music. I also love making lists, so this book has a lot going for it.

Rob has just been dumped by Laura and the book chronicles his time trying to deal with this. He starts by listing the top five breakups he's ever had, and eventually searches each of these women out to try and find some answers. Laura is not on this list. Rob also runs a small record store which causes him to have some issues about his success in life. Music is a big part of Rob's life. Big part.

I love the idea of the top 5 lists that Rob and his two coworkers make all the time. They start out as lists dealing with music, but Rob has a hard time not thinking in top 5 lists. I especially love thinking about his top 5 breakup stories. Not all of them are what you would expect. They aren't all soul crushing, long-term relationship breakups. But they all had a huge impact on who he became as a person. I wonder what my top 5 would be.

In his angst about Laura leaving, Rob reorganizes his massive record collection. This is something I completely understand. I could spend days organizing my books - it's a kind of therapy.

This book is part love story and part coming of age tale, even though Rob is in his 30s. But I think that is getting more and more typical in our society - you don't quite know what you're doing with your life until later and later.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone. Pick it up.

Few quotes, sorry no page numbers

"It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party." ~ how true do you think this is - I'm leaning towards agreeing completely.

"Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostagic and hopeful all at the same time."

"Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship." ~ This is another thing that is so true for a lot of people I know. All or nothing baby.

Books that Stick

From Booking Through Thursday
“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”


These are in no specific order - just as they came to me.

1. The Master and Margarita by Mikahil Bulgakov
2. Anna Karinina by Leo Tolstoy
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
4. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
5. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
6. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
7. Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
9. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
10. The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstien
11. 1984 by George Orwell
12. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
13. Extremely Loud and Incridebly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger

I now want to reread all of these.