Photo of woman reading by Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash
I am often asked what I am reading. The pandemic has provided me with more time than usual to read and I am taking advantage of it. However, the stack of books at my bedside and books on my Kindle cover subjects so disparate that it is reasonable to assume that I am either a person of wide-ranging interests or a complete garbage brain.
Here is a partial list books I have been reading during the past several months:
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (politics)
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby (humorous essays)
A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion (novel)
The Teenage Brain by Frances E. Jensen, M.D. (Granddaughter prep)
The Sunset Western Book of Landscaping (Bay Area gardening)
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna (fiction about the aftermath of war in the former Yugoslavia)
Euphoria by Lily King (novel inspired by the life of Margaret Mead)
A Very Stable Genius by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonig (politics)
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri(fiction about Syrian refugees)
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (self-help)
When I began to write this essay, I had to check out the books on my bedside table and bookcase because, with a few exceptions, I couldn’t remember what I have been reading these past months. That reminded me of a poem by the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins. Here is a portion of “Forgetfulness:”
The name of the author is the first to go
Followed obediently by the title, the plot,
The heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
Which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
Never even heard of,
As if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
Decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
To a little fishing village where there are no phones.
HAVE A GOOD WEEK!
P. S. Thanks to all of you who subscribed last week in response to my request. I truly appreciate it (and you).
