Books: What My Hands Are Touching These Days. Yours?

I have been reading, really, even though I haven’t written a thing about it. Been busy, as I am sure you are, too.

What am I currently reading?

I am reading The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. I will reserve complete judgement of this book until I am finished (about 75 pages left to go). It’s an often engaging story, actually two separate yet interwined storylines. I am fascinated by lighthouses, and this book is about living on a remote island off the Australian mainland where contact with the rest of the world happens every three months at most. I would love to try living this existence if given the opportunity.

I recently started a book of short stories called The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan. This is what Goodreads has to say about this book:

“An affecting and hope-filled posthumous collection of essays and stories from the talented young Yale graduate whose title essay captured the world's attention in 2012 and turned her into an icon for her generation.

Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash.”

I am only a few stories in. So far, so very, very good!!!

What did I recently finish?

Yesterday, I finished All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I have quickly become a huge McCarthy fan after reading Children of God (Can you handle creepy? Soon to be a movie!) last year, and, more recently The Road, which I absolutely LOVED! McCarthy’s prose is sparse, yet luscious, and beautiful, yet masculine. You might think that these adjectives used to describe his writing are mutually exclusive, especially “beautiful, yet masculine”, but you’ll understand what I mean if you’ve read anything like these novels. Next McCarthy in line is No Country for Old Men. A book friend somewhat discourged me from reading it saying he recommends it to his “good guy friends”, and, in his experience, women like “romance and sentiment”. I have somewhat masculine tastes in two things, books and my bedding. I will give it a whirl.

What will I read next?

I will probably read An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay, The Vacationers by Emma Straub, or To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris (which I received as a “first read” from Goodreads, and it is already out and I haven’t lived up to my side of the bargain as of yet).

That’s it for my shelves. What are you reading? Enjoying? Hating? Recommending?

WWW.Wednesday: Well Books, Of Course!

To play along, just answer the following three questions…

What are you currently reading?

I’m staying up too late again! That’s always a sign. This book is simply written yet beautifully so. It’s about an English Major turned Professor at the University of Missouri in the early 1900. It’s fiction!

What did you recently finish reading?

I liked this almost as much as I loved Eleanor and Park. Rowell get young love.

Almost brutal! It took all my energy and patience to get through this. I think I would have been more engaged had it been 75 pages shorter. The end made large strides in its likeability factor for me.

What will you read next?

Gosh, I never know but most likely

 I started it a while ago and need to get back to it.

Or

(If I can get my husband to finish soon, which is unlikely. If I read on my Kindle at the same time as he does, I am certain to mess up his place...unless I reset it each day, but that's too big of a hassle.)

Thanks to Should Be Reading for hosting!

WWW.Wednesday: Books!

(I apologize for not knowing how to link these pictures to the Goodreads descriptions and reviews. I’ll figure it out soon, I promise.)

What am I reading now?

I am currently reading two books, which is unusual for me, as I like to concentrate and focus on only one at a time. But someone kept bugging me to read 

so I am (a little over halfway through). I am reading, for myself, The Woman Upstairs (I’m not very far along, at least not as far as I’d like to be).

What did I recently finish?

I liked it very much. It’s translated from Spanish (I really wish I could read it in the language in which it was originally written because I think it might have lost some of the author’s colorful detail in translation. Who knows?). It’s set in Bogota (missing the accent, I know), Columbia and that fascinated me. I highly recommend this book. And,

I thought this book was merely okay. I actually had a bit of difficulty even giving it 3-stars on Goodreads. I was originally attracted to it because of it’s setting (Chicago), which I enjoyed because I know the city well and could visualize the scenes. BUT, the writing and plot, in my opinion, were sorely lacking in creativity and detail. Quick read and I’m hesitant to recommend.

What will I read next?

AKA The Ship of Theseus, which I have sitting next to my bed. I’m dying to pick it up.

Or

(Which I just ordered from Amazon and awaiting it's arrival). 

Or

I can never decide until I'm finished with what I'm currently reading...

Should Be Reading hosts this Wednesday book link up.

Trifecta: Why I Write

For this weekend's Trifecta challenge, "in honor of all of the writers throwing rationality (and perhaps sanity) to the wind and writing 'til their fingers bleed", they're asking for exactly 33 words about why we write. So here are mine (this is hard in so few words but I suppose that's the point):

Bickering crazies dance conspiratorially in my head needing indulgence.

Gifting an excitable imagination with 

Purpose

Replenishes endorphins paralleling reading, no running. Well, almost.

Spoken words never match comparably.

Can’t.

Don’t.

Won’t.

That’s why.

The Comfy Cozies: Stream of Consciousness Sunday

It’s Stream of Consciousness Sunday at Jana’s Thinking Place. Her optional prompt today is:

What makes you feel cozy and safe?

The drill is always the same. Write for five minutes. Don’t edit what you write. Post what you have. Easy!

It’s chilly here probably because it’s in the mid-40s but it’s damp which makes it look colder and feel the same.

So making me feel cozy this very minute is sitting here in my softest sweats, sipping hot chocolate on my comfy down couch and writing this. Cozy, indeed. That’s what immediate, right now, cozy and safe feels like to me…being warm and comfy inside my house.

But cozy and safe in “life” is different than that; feels different.

To me, it’s my family and friends. Being with them, touching them physically and emotionally. Laughing together. Playing. Talking. Having little inside stories only the otherknows. Familiarity of a million types.

Yesterday, cozy was standing in a parking lot tailgating on a college campus, feeding my kids and their friends dogs and burgers while sipping Irish coffees with old friends.

Cozy and safe to me is a feeling not a structure. Never a particular set of four walls. It’s more about the “who” than the “what or where”. That’s the big picture application of cozy and safe to me.

Although, sitting on the same couch, under the same blanket with my hubby while he watches the Bears and I read….

This is the small picture view of cozy and safe. But I’m betting it’s the person and not the couch. And it’s the reading and the watching as we do something we both love that gives us that comfy cozy glow.

A Question For Three Types Of Mammals

Is it a realistic expectation to be able to do what you'd like, when you’d like to do it, for as long as you'd like or even for a short period of time if that's what you want? Is it fair to expect others in your life to allow for this?

I love to read. Everyone who knows me knows this. And even if you only know me a little, you know this, too. It’s one of the basic. It’s me.

Picture Belle from “Beauty and The Beast” walking around her village with her nose in a book, bumping into things. I’m not always that absorbed but I can be and if I have a spare moment, my hands will open a book.

I always have a book with me whether it’s downloaded on my phone from my Kindle through my iPad or a “real” book stuffed on my person or thrown on the passenger seat of the car. You have the idea, right?

Obviously I can’t read when I’m driving, although I would if I could, and actually I did once in college. Returning from a visit with my college love who lived an hour away and I needed to read a marketing article in preparation for class.

Anyway…All I wanted to do Monday was read even though I was looking at a very long “to-do” list of chores. Don’t you think the word “chore” has negative connotations? I do.

I ripped off the inside portion of the list and got to it; whipping through everything in an hour. I did a slightly better than a half assed job of it, in my opinion. Things looked decent and I declared myself finished for the day.

It was sunny and breezy and perfect for reading at the end of the pier. I snuck down unbeknownst to anyone.

Peace and quiet. Sun lounger and lemonade. Book and me. Ahhhhh!

It’s was perfect for ten minutes until 75 lbs. of furry brown fun came pouncing down to water's edge, ball in mouth. If she could speak, she was saying, “Play with me. I love water. Throw the ball. Again. Again. Again…”

This wasn’t working but I played for a while tiring her completely until her tongue was almost sweeping the ground. She plopped down and left me alone. Post shake, that is.

Mood only slightly diminished, I moved to the front yard. Set myself up on two chairs, cushion under my rear, legs propped up, and book opened….again.

After a few minutes, I heard a familiar chirping, not like a bird, coming from a spot 10 feet away and 20 feet above me. I knew what it was from its very first utterance.

It was this squirrel on its perch in my tree. I don’t know if it’s the same squirrel that constantly torments and taunts the dog but I knew its game here and I was really starting to get annoyed. Every time it started yipping at me, I would look up at it and it would stop. The minute I’d look down at my book, it chirped incessantly. This went on three or four times until I laughed and said out loud, “Really? You’re kidding me, right?” Nope, not kidding. I threw a stick up at the perch. 

But I began to wonder why it seemed like everything wanted my attention and/or didn’t want me to read. Could that be it?

Two attempts, two strikeouts. Third time a charm?

I readjusted myself and started again.

Not more than 15 minutes goes by and my husband, finished with his to-do's, showered, two margaritas in hand, sits down. “Wanna do something?”

I flip a few pages to see where the chapter ends and say, “Four pages. Can you wait for four pages?”

“Do you want to play cribbage or go for a boat ride?” he responds.

“I’m not doing anything until I read these four pages. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure, but what…”

“AH!” I interrupted holding my hand up.

That bought me enough silence to read ten more pages (I snuck in a few extra while he sipped his drink).

The dog, a crazy ass squirrel and my husband all made repeated attempts to disrupt me today for their own purposes. None of them are readers. Well, two can’t be. One doesn’t “get” it or consider it an immensely important part of life like I do.* The best I can relate it to is golf. For him. That's what reading means to me.

So, I tried to ignore them all. Tune them out the best I could. Engage in something I really wanted to do with my time. Told them to hold their horses! Just short of "Leave me alone."

Am I being defiant? Well, maybe. Yes.

I’m taking what I want. Everyone else does. They need to learn to entertain themselves, anyway.

I love them (well not the squirrel) but reading is my love, too. There are worse things I could be choosing to do with my time. It’s not like I’m hanging out at the bars.

**********************************

*I have talked up The Hunger Games so much, “It’s right up your alley, Honey!” so just maybe…. I’ve only been able to get him to read three books, Private Parts by Howard Stern, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and only on vacations.