tumbly.

Progress: 7 down, 14 to go (list)

Which: How We Decide, Jonah Leher

I love this sort of how-it-works (but-sometimes-totally-doesn’t) reading. So engrossed was I, the book only took 2 days to read. (Lots of “huh!” and “whoa” as I read.)

Leher argues for examining your decisions — the hows and whys — in order to keep your gut reactions sharp. I like that argument; I’m a fan of the hard work, getting the basics right (running drills every time I swim, using a honing steel every time you break out the knives, etc.), so that laying the foundation, doing the grunt work becomes part of how you do.

Nota bene: I finished How We Decide in, uh, early February. I’ve not touched a book since. For a few reasons, one of which is definitely burnout. 7 books in just over 4 weeks? This isn’t senior year, gotta pace myself. (Hellooo Netflix Watch Instantly…)

Progress: 6 down, 15 to go! (list)

Which: The Tao of Wu, The RZA

What I knew about the Wu-Tang Clan before this book couldn’t fill a thimble. Rappers, Shaolin something-something, and a few of My People dig ‘em. Not that I’m an expert, now, but learning about their (okay, mostly RZA’s) history as a backdrop to RZA’s own philosophies worked for me.

He manages to tell his story and explain what he’s learned without falling down the preachy rabbit hole. Mostly¹. Except even the moments where he teeters on the edge of that descent, he sounds more earnest, fervent, than judgmental.

For all the work his hard work on his path to enlightenment, it’s not until the loss of his mom and later his cousin (ODB) that RZA’s sense of perspective starts to square with my own and I begin to relate to him. That kind of loss has shaped my entire life, observing its effect on someone else is a bizarre and heart-breaking thing.

¹ In a 20-year-old letter he uses to close the book, there’s 1 line that hints at homophobia; it doesn’t ruin the book, but I did think “Come on. 1989, but dude. Sigh.”

At least football’s not totally over, yet…

Surely you saw this coming: after plowing through 5 books in a couple of weeks, I want nothing to do with reading.

More progress! 5 down, 16 to go. (list)

Which: Do Not Deny Me, Jean Thompson; Love Walked In, Marisa De los Santos.

I like the idea of short stories but I don’t read many of them (John August’s The Variant is my most recent favorite), so Do Not Deny Me was fun. Well, “fun.” I don’t know, a couple of the women were too shrill for me to like. You know what I liked, though? They were shrill in a “good lord, I have met that woman” kind of way. So, nicely done.

Love Walked In was sweet. I was prepared for it to be saccharine, but it…earns the story and ending. De los Santos doesn’t pull any cheap tricks or try to hoodwink the reader or short-sheet her characters, which is nice.

The thing is every time I read “Archimboldi” in 2666, in my head I hear Rambaldi and wonder for a few seconds when Jennifer Garner’s going to swing in and thwack Norton upside the head.

(She never does. …I know!)

Reading: The Coral Thief

I’m finding Daniel (narrator) to be terribly irritating. All his hemming and hawing about Lucienne and “omg she needs to get out of Paris” and “blah blah but I love her”…good lord, man!

Hmm. Perhaps it’s not accidental. He is 23 and away from his beloved Derbyshire and Edinburgh for the first time, after all. That post-college, pre-25 window is fraught with annoying behavior and emotional upheaval, maybe he just can’t help it. (In which case: nicely done, Ms Stott.)

Doesn’t change the fact that I’d be happy to smack him upside the head.

The challenge: read 20 books by (the end of) June (this year :P).

20 is approximately 80% of the books I have but haven’t read. And like the book-junkie I am, when I got my library card tonight (Seattle Public Library: you are so cool with your self-checkout), I…picked up 2 more books (listed first).

Oh, bother.

The list:

1. Do Not Deny Me - Jean Thompson
2. The Coral Thief - Rebecca Stott
3. 2666 - Roberto Bolaño*
4. Lincoln: Biography of a Writer - Fred Kaplan*
5. The Four Seasons - Laurel Corona*
6. The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp*
7. The Tao of Wu - The RZA
8. The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross
9. Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell
10. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
12. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
13. The Portrait of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
14. The Age of Wonder - Richard Holmes*
15. The Inheritance of Rome - Chris Wickham
16. Love Walked In - Marisa de los Santos
17. How We Decide - Jonah Lehrer
18. His Excellency: George Washington - Joseph J. Ellis
19. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
20. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
21. The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan

(* - already in progress)

addendum! Almost forgot The Last Olympian!

!

In progress: books.

Before college: I read linearly (wow that does not look or sound like an actual word). It didn’t occur to me not to and jr. and high school reading loads didn’t warrant anything else.

During college: on a quarter system, focused on my major, I learned in short order how to flip between a stack of books without needing to finish one before starting another. Note-taking is how I got through it; a brief glimpse to reset my mental Etch-a-Sketch® and away we go.

After college: I’m unable to read one thing at a time. Every so often I’ll warp-speed through a single book, but the norm is: this one for a day or two, that one for a few hours, that other one for a day, etc.

Currently:

• 2666 - Roberto Bolaño
  JM mentioned it to me a few months back and then Casey started the 2666 book club and here we are. (That Amazon review is excellent, I think.)
• Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
  Not my usual (if have a usual), but fun! Especially since it starts out at Inverness, a place I’ve been.
• Lincoln: Biography of a Writer - Fred Kaplan
  Supplemented with a book of all his speeches and letters, which doubles as a free weight! …
• The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan
  Dragging my feet because the series is friggin’ fun and I’m annoyed it’s the last book. (: (I’ll at least finish by February…)
• A manuscript from a friend who probably thinks I’ve forgotten it, but I haven’t!