self-indulgent reading list exercise

[oiran]

This is a head-clearing exercise. Anti-fanfic, in a way. I'm trying to write fic and there are unexpected emotions coming into play. After an hour or so of trying to force, then just reconcile, I'm conceding space to angst I hadn't planned. It's one of those situations where if I don't cooperate, all the boys are putting their shirts back on and going home.

I read lots of things at once. This is an incomplete list; I can picture the books stacked, but I can't remember everything. And then the list reminds me of things I love that need rereading, so it makes it difficult to remember if I'm actually readdressing The Blind Assassin, or if I just thought about doing so.

(I should reread/readdress The Blind Assassin. And also Alias Grace and Oryx & Crake. And you should, too.)

Current Reading List:

• Michaelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling - Ross King. What a cranky bastard that Michaelangelo is! His letters are this litany of annoyance and self-pity that I totally relate to. And the Pope! Oh, god! His kids all have special appointments. I've been digging at this for months. Enjoyable, but not compelling me to read straight through.


• Strapless - Deborah Davis. Not Davies, like I said before. We've just dismissed Mme. Gautreau to social obscurity and are heading into Sargent's late period.


• Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert. This time I was compelled to pick it up by its use in a Sopranos plot, but I end up reading this pretty much every year. She's reading too much and she's dissatisfied…and that doesn't sound familiar to me at all. Nope, not one bit.


• The Vagabond - Colette. I have, like, 20 pages left, but I refuse to finish.


• Carlucci series in one volume - Richard Paul Russo. I read Destroying Angel when it came out, I think, but I'm only remembering things as I read them, not in advance. I think I'm enjoying it much more this time.


• Atonement - Ian McEwan. When will I finally just give up and close the cover on this one? I'm never going to finish it. And, like most books I don't finish, it's looking much worse for wear than a book that I've actually enjoyed. Most of my books that I purchase new continue to look new for years and years. Spines do not crack on my paperbacks. I hesitate to loan books out because of this. But Atonement looks like it's seen years of hard reading and it's permanently open to whatever page I left off at…the part where the younger sister has the male friend's letter and you know that eventually the older sister will read it and I just completely lost interest.


• The Last Night of the Earth - Charles Bukowski. It's poetry. Its not the sort of thing you really "finish."


• War Paint - Lindy Woodhead. Well-researched bio of Madame Helena Rubenstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden and their fierce rivalry. Unfortunately, the author insists on drawing many stupid, half-assed conclusions instead of just telling the story. Like Deborah Davis, above, Ms. Woodhead seems to be an excellent researcher and very mediocre writer. I have a whole shelf of beauty/cosmetic/fashion biographies, so I'm just pleased someone wrote this even if I'm rolling my eyes a lot.


• The Devil Wears Prada - by whoever it's by. Purchased in the airport. Because I have a shelf of beauty/cosmetic/fashion biographies, I make the mistake of thinking I'll enjoy this kind of chick lit, but I almost never do.


• MANGA! Many, many titles and authors. Scanlations from various sources. Of what I've read so far, I only really like YnM, but I have a few things waiting in the wings that might turn out to be good.


• The Escapist - Michael Chabon and various other artists and writers. I've read a couple of stories, but I decided that I need to reread The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay along with them, so I'm holding off on the rest for the moment.

So. What are y'all reading?

Comments

[pepperjackcandy.livejournal.com]

On odd-numbered trips to bed, Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy, because it's one of the textbooks for my summer class (starting June 7).

On even-numbered trips to bed, David and Leigh Eddings' Belgarath the Sorcerer.

[rhihero-fic.livejournal.com]

In no particular order:

1. Memoirs of Cleopatra by Somebody (too lazy to look it up): I've only been reading this since, oh, January. Everytime I read more than four pages of it, I'm moved to go write.

2. Smallville City: Okay, so I was suckered into buy this by the promise of slash!

3. Queer As Folk, The Book: OMG. I'm such a big dork.

4. Rainbow Boys by someone: Young Adult about gay boys that JJ gave me.

*frowns*

Okay, this is unacceptable. I feel like a big dweeb. Why is there nothing intellectual on this list?

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

and that doesn't sound familiar to me at all. Nope, not one bit.

You don't live near a large stock of poison right?

Rhi! Rainbow boys. We have that. It's so cute. There's nothing intellectual on my list either.


Me:

The Chariot of the Gods Erik Van Daniken [I know that's spelled incorrectly]

The Joy of Gay Sex Dr. Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano

The Coming Storm Paul Russell

Summer of Night Dan Simmons

[stone-princess.livejournal.com]

New Pornographers - Letter from an Occupant (in my head)

It never, never goes away.

I'm reading:

1. Cracking India by Bapsi Sidwa. It's told from the point of view of a little Parsee girl in Lahore in Partition-era India. It's beautifully written, though I find I am literally stunned, left agasp and gaping when she recounts the atrocities committed on both sides of the new Pakistan-India border. It's moving and quite horrifying.

2. Lirael by Garth Nix. Teenage necromancers, flashy adventurous, medieval fantasy. best escapist fiction I've found in a long time. This is the second book in a series.

3. Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. Not something I'd usually read. I got just for the story "Brokeback Mountain," but am surprisingly engaged by all her short stories and her writing style.

4. Understanding Web Services: XML, WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI by Eric Newcomer. Because, god damn it, I am going get a decent job one of these days.

5. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Get it. Read it. Love it.

[perclexed.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I like your list. Mine was too long to post in comments, so I put it over here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/perclexed/202837.html). :)

[tehomet.livejournal.com]

• The Rough Guide to Bulgaria, because I'm aiming to go there. And apparently they have excellent yoghurt, bizarre folk dancing while dressed like a mobile haystack, and also a temple of Isis in someplace with far too many zs in the name for me to pronounce. Mmm.
  
• Everybody Pays, a book of short stories by the godlike Andrew Vachss.
  

[swanswan.livejournal.com]

mmmm annie proulx ( i actually got that from jacyn's comment, but i love proulx so much i had to state it. again)

20 pgs on Colette! I love the end, actually. The train section in the last part, and just... gah, the whole book.

I'm currently reading something annoying that got seriously amazing reviews and isn't standing up to it. I'm gonna do an amazon run soon and buy Pascale's pensees and the SV hoyay novel. Whee!

[isagel.livejournal.com]

Um... It was far too long since I actually finished something that wasn't fanfic, but let's see what I've got lying around:

Gaius Julius Caesar - Politics and Morality in the Roman Empire by Peter Örsted. Danish Caesar biography which is really cool, and of course meant to give me inspiration for Captured. Which it already has; I just need to take the time to read the rest of it and be inspired some more.
Allies in Healing by Laura Davies. Excellent book about being in a relationship with a survivor of child sexual abuse. You know why I'm reading that. I like it because it mostly consists of interviews with partners of survivors, and it does help to hear what other people in your own situation have to say. I cried like a crazy person when I first read in it. Haven't touched it for a long time now.
Gösta Berling's Saga by Selma Lagerlöf. Swedish classic that I decided to reread. 19th century magical realism in the northern forests, highly romantic, highly humorous and altogether brilliant. Has one of the perhaps three most famous opening sentences in Swedish literature: "Finally the pastor stood in the pulpit." One of those Swedish novels I would want foreign people to read. Hell, everyone should read Selma, our big lesbian national icon, who was the first woman to appear on a bill.
The Body Artist by Don DeLillo. Started this ages ago, but for some reason didn't get far. DeLillo's language is beautiful, though, and I really want to finish it.
Lord of the Rings for the fiftyeleventh time, because Eva wanted me to read it aloud to her again. Still one of the best books ever.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which Eva is reading to me. Didn't expect it to be very good, and language-wise it isn't, but the characters and plot are fascinating. 1000 page epic about medieaval cathedral builders, and I should have known that would suck me in.
And on top of this, there's a heap of books about Benjamin Britten that I ought to be reading for the essay that I ought to be writing. I'll say no more on that subject.

[kallipoe.livejournal.com]

the iliad - homer. i love this book but haven't actually read it in about four years, so i figured it was time.

the new testament - don't get me into the authorship issues. i read bits and pieces back in freshman year at reed, but it's time to read it all the way through. if only to motivate myself to learn greek so i can yell at people intelligently about romans 1.

and there's an obscenely long list of stuff i've been meaning to read (including michaelangelo & the pope's ceiling and bukowski) but my current stuff is dense enough that if i let myself get distracted, i'll never finish them.