Monday, March 31, 2008

What I'm reading right now

I'm a reader. No, really, I'm a READER. I don't watch TV much (no cable, no antenna), and though I occasionally watch DVDs, mostly I read. I have a leather book weight on my sink so I can read while I brush my teeth. Despite advice to the contrary, I read while I eat. I read before sleep. When the weather is nice, I read on my porch swing. When it's cold outside, I read by the woodstove.

Here's what's on my list now:

The Girls: A Novel by Lori Lansens, about conjoined twins Ruby and Rose Darlens. I started this yesterday and am completely pulled into the story already.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. I know I've written about this before, but it's a book I savor in little bites.
Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? by Seth Godin. I'm always reading about marketing and business. I think I read a lot of this stuff because it's so hard for me to retain. Eventually some of it sticks.
What's Your Story?: Storytelling to Move Markets, Audiences, People, and Brands by Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker. Not much new in this one in the first few chapters, but I'll skim through the rest of it before I return it to the library. It's probably good for business people.

At breakfast, I read the local newspaper. I've got a few back issues of Funny Times, This Old House, and my alumni magazines hanging around. I read those in between everything else.

I'm not including story collections on this list--at the moment, I've got the The Annotated Brothers Grimm, translated by Maria Tatar, pulled off the shelf, along with some other Grimm translations. More on that later. I'm also not including the ongoing reading of Queen Berta and King Pippin--I continue to work on my translation of the Old French.

What are you reading?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. It starts a bit slowly, but is important because it's about global food issues. The family embarks on a year's term of eating locally, mmost, VERY locally. Kingsolver's joined by co-authors Steven Hopp (her husband) and her older child, Camille, who happens to be studying nutrition in college.I dare you to read it!

Tim said...

While Green Grass Grows: Memoirs of a Folklorist is Brid Mahon's chronicle of her long professional career with the Irish Folklore Commission. Kind of rambling in an attempt to cover everything, but fascinating to recall how recently efforts were made to collect national folklore. Some fun recollections of celebrities, inlcluding Burl Ives, Walt Disney, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

And I can't help it, but I'm finding the totally irreverrent Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal side-splittingly funny.

Granny Sue said...

Add me to the no-TV group. What I'm reading is ballad books, ballad books, ballad books. I have a new workshop to present this coming weekend on anglo-american ballads so I'm doing homework and stressing out.

BUT (Tim, you'd be proud of this behind-the-times granny) I learned this weekend how to load albums on my Zune, create a playlist for my workshop and make the Zune play through a radio. Yay! Now I need to figure out how to record my voice on the Zune. anybody know?

PriscillaHowe said...

Alas, my house is a Zune-free zone (I couldn't resist that).

About Sean Buvala said...

The Dip by Seth Godin