2015 [in books]
I thought I’d seen a sorry amount of theater in 2015, then I looked at the list of books I’d read in the course of the year. Can 5 books even be called a list? How sad that’s all I made it through! But if I think about it, though the number of books I read is low, my eyes were not short for words these last twelve months. THE INTERESTINGS – 2015 started off with cold weekends bundled up in my apartment hot coffee, an indulgent breakfast and a good book. Meg Wolitzer’s contemporary story of six friends whose lives and life experiences span decades and criss-cross each other in…
2014 [in books]
While I’m proud of the bazillion movies I watched this year (and promise I’ve posted all I’m going to post about them!), I realize as I look back at the list of books I read just what all that time in front of a screen cost me. I have only have nine books on the list for 2014; in 2013, I managed to fit in fifteen. Still not terribly impressive given all the time I had off that year, but better than this year’s sad showing. I ascribe this year’s low number to a few factors: for one, I find myself in a constant state of content over-saturation. There is always a…
Me & Liz
I’m going into this post knowing full well that instead of writing about what’s inspiring me about writing, I should be…you know, writing. But you wonderful readers are kind enough to delight in my delights, and so it would be unfair of me to keep the events of this week to myself. I adore one Elizabeth Gilbert, she of Eat, Pray, Love fame. The book was profoundly impactful in my life, not in the least because I discovered it at the very moment I was in a place where I could fully receive it. More than that, her words have stayed with me like good friends since first discovering them, there for me when I…
Read This: The Leftovers
You probably don’t realize it, but you know Tom Perrotta’s work. He’s not achieved a Stephen King-like status, but its not for lack of trying. His approachable, nuanced and poignant novels have been adapted into witty, smart films starring the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Kate Winslet. The Leftovers, his novel from 2011, is next in line for an adaptation – this time as a series at HBO. And it makes sense, really, that this book would get the long-form treatment. Perrotta’s created a world unto itself within the pages of the book, and it looks like the show’s creators aren’t being shy about expanding on it. In Mapleton, everything…
Day in, Day out
As I make my way through the stack of books in my queue for 2014, I threw one in the mix early that wasn’t initially on my radar. But after hearing about it several times, from several different sources, I sought out Daily Rituals. Based on a blog started in 2007 (which I’d somehow managed to leave undiscovered!), the premise is simple: how did some of the greatest creative minds of this generation – and the ones before it – do it? That is, how did they get each word down, each stroke out of the paintbrush on a regular basis. What did their day really look like? It’s a quick…
2013 [in books]
As previously documented, I’ve got a love of reading. And while I’m no good at reading more than one book at a time, I’m always reading one book at a time. Usually, I have a horrible time deciding which book I’ll pick up; my habit of buying strolling secondhand bookstores means my shelves are stacked with To Read tomes I never quite seem to put a dent in. And once I do sort out what I’d like to pick up next, it’s the time to read that I have to scrounge up somewhere. But then, moving across the country with only what you can fit in your car, traveling to…
