The Family Sideways: BOOKS!

BOOKS! 2/26/2009 09:54:00 PM

Seriously, how cute is this?

So Mark told me I had to blog more, especially since I ended my two week dalliance with Facebook, and don't regret that decision in the least. Still working on the blog more part.

So I figured I'd talk about what books I've been reading, so that you all will get bored and forget that I don't blog very often. Let me know how it works.

I have been a huge Barnes and Noble freak since college, since that was the best place to go to get away from my apartment and spend a whole day studying and reading and not needing to talk to anyone. Mark and I would still make occasional bookstore trips together, although admittedly they became less frequent once we moved to Colorado. Then after C was born, I was way too tired to think about reading.

So then C got big enough, and a new library was built, so we figured we'd check out the kids library section--which is AWESOME. She loves going there--stares at the fishies, pulls all the books off the shelves (but since they are mostly cardboard books in baskets she can grab, no big deal), jumps on the beanbags, and runs around the storytime room. It's fantastic. So then Mark and I actually started using the library card we got over 2 years ago.

Libraries are so fantastic. I realized it is even more fantastic that we are using it once Mark told me how much we are paying for it through our property taxes. Considering how much money we used to spend on books, we'll see how much it pays off.

The good news is that in the past 3 months, I have read 7 library books, plus two extra PostSecret books (I don't feel bad about checking these out from the library since I gave one as a gift). From my calculations, I have to read at least another 5 books to make sure I am getting my money back from my taxes. As I already have another 2 checked out, I'm pretty certain I'll be able to reach this goal. If you count in the books Mark has checked out and read, we break even, and from here on out, the library is ALL OURS.

Here's my list of books I have read since the beginning of December:

Complications by Atul Gawande
Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
What I Think About When I Think About Running by Haruki Murakami
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
College Girl by Patricia Weitz
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

PLUS the two PostSecret books
PLUS The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty (but that one was borrowed from Ann).

I rule.

I'm trying to think which ones I liked the most. I liked Complications because he's pretty straight on about some of the crap that goes through a doctor's brain sometimes. I liked Downtown Owl, but only because the author busts out some wicked 80's Fargo, ND references that only a local would get, and I appreciate that. The running book-meh. Flowers for Algernon was good, better than the last time I read it, in 8th grade HONORS ENGLISH (hi Mr. Kolstad), College Girl and Beat the Reaper I read about in The Week, and neither one was as good as advertised. Mark was the one who checked out Childhood's End, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and makes me want to read more Arthur C. Clarke. The PostSecret books, of course, were fantastic, and Memory of Running, I think I read it in just a few days because it was just such a great story.

So there you go. Tubby D's Book Club.

The two books I have checked out are Better, Atul Gawande's follow-up to Complications, and The Survivor's Club, by Ben Sherwood, which I plan to read on the plane out to my medical conference in Napa in a few weeks so people will think I'm levelheaded. Suckers.

OK. Still reading? Sweet. I'm going to do some dishes and go to bed. Oh. And maybe read a little.

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2 Comments:

mark said...

The fact that Dana has read three of the books that I checked out (or got from Granimal), and that I have read none of those she checked out, means one of three things:

1) I have much better taste in books than Dana,
2) I am much better than Dana at convincing my spouse to read a book I just finished, or
3) Dana reads a lot more than me.

I've read about half the volume of Dana, let's see if I can remember:

Childhood's End,
The Memory of Running, and
Flowers for Algernon, as D described.

Also:
Watchmen (yes, the graphic novel. I'm stoked for the movie.),
World War Z, by Max Brooks (you try convincing your wife to read a book about world war with zombies),
I picked up Anathem but will actually have to buy that one, since it took me two weeks to get through as many chapters, and I love Neal Stephenson and want to give him money. And the book is like 1000 pages long.

I *did* read both of the PostSecret books but since I told Dana about the site I don't feel like I have to give her credit for those.

And right now I have two books checked out. My first nonfiction of the year, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would be Human by Elizabeth Hess, and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller - which has one of those old school checkout cards with dates back into the fifties.

THAT IS ALL!

(I REALLY need to play more videogames lest I turn into a nerd)

posted at 7:30 AM

Amy said...

miss you love, sorry I never called back. ...I am a crummy friend at keeping in touch... love you though. Oh and this whole entry make me feel like a slacker, who once called herself an english major, who must read more!

posted at 4:26 PM