read

I knew it was coming, the end of this glorious season of free reading. I’d just convinced myself that I had a little more time. Alas, there will be review books in my hands by the time you finish reading this, and depending on my schedule, these could be the last few personal choice reads that I had the luck to personally choose. For a few months anyway. (drama, drama drama)

Now that my last three reads feel like MY LAST. THREE. READS., I feel like I made good choices. Last week I flew through All Joy and No Fun, which satisfied the lack of non-fiction in my year’s reading, as well as got rid of an ARC that sat on my shelf for far too many months. It wasn’t a revolutionary read  for me – I spent three years talking about how adults view children and childhood in grad school; I used to read my mother’s parenting books when I was a kid; I read mommy blogs, for goodness sake – but it might be enlightening for a reader who is, ah, not a big fat weirdo.

I also finished John Updike’s Rabbit, Run on audio this weekend. Oh boy. I made my choice because I’ve never read any full-length Updike, because I liked the narrator, and because I got into the story pretty quickly. All was well, until Harry Angstrom turned out to be one of the more loathsome protagonists I’ve met in literature. I like to deride people who deride books based on the likeability of characters, so I listened on with with intent and humility, but I could really only take thirty minutes or so at a time before I just wanted to throttle him. This might have also been due to the narrator? He was a good reader, but maybe Harry would have been less smarmy in my head if I didn’t have a narrator smarming him up.

In less ambivalent news, I read Grasshopper Jungle this weekend and really couldn’t do much of anything else. Read this, please. It’s not as weird as you think, but it’s also as weird as you think.

reading

While I was waiting for my stack of required reads, I really just devoted myself to muscling through the enormous (but quite good) The Name of the Wind. Seriously, though. Enormous. I purposefully checked out the hardback because I hate mass-market paperbacks so very much, but now I’m stuck with this 700+ page doorstop. I cannot bring it anywhere with me. So I also started reading the new Gretchen Rubin (snagged from Edelweiss!) on my Kindle and my phone. So far it’s not quite as readable as her last two, but it’s all about building habits and making changes in one’s life so I am obviously drinking all of that Kool Aid.

I am also listening to What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding. To be honest, I was cheating on Rabbit, Run with this one. Some days, I just couldn’t force myself to spend any more time with Mr. Angstrom, so I spent some time with Ms. Newman instead. She’s much more winning. This is a comedy/travel memoir that flew under the radar this past Spring, but for those of you who like… ah… comedy and travel and reading about single people’s short-term affairs with foreign men, well, this is CERTAINLY the book for you! I will probably finish it in the next few days – it’s quick, and now that Rabbit’s out of the way…

to read

First up in my stack of Required Reads: The Half Life of Molly Pierce. From what I can tell, there will be some mysterious black outs. Some amnesia. Probably some thrills and some chills and some romance. It also weighs less than 8 pounds (*cough* Kvothe *cough*)Let’s get it done, then!

I am feeling incredibly indecisive about my next audiobook. Firstworldreaderproblems. I have a few queued up but nothing I am feeling ecstatic about. This is (bizarrely, needlessly) anxiety-provoking. I am thinking Ann Patchett’s Patron Saint of Liars might be the winner. I listened to Patchett’s essay collection, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage in May and I really enjoyed it, but I haven’t ready any of Patchett’s fiction… even though she’s one of those authors who writes those books that everyone loves and says you’ll love and blah blah blah I have no excuses at this point, so maybe I should read one. I will. I will listen to this book and be happy. Plus, I have been doing a fair bit of Manly Dude Reading in the past few months, so I have been jonesing for something a little more woman-centric. There. Decided. Peace be with me.