Friday, August 21, 2015

Welcome To My Reading Week


I've got several books on the go, so I feel like a juggler running out of hands:

1. Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life - George Brescia. This is my fluff for the week. I can't help being attracted to fashion, and I only just figured out why.  It's the narrative. When they're telling you what to wear, the very best have a narrative about where you could wear this thing, and what you'd be doing. If they just say 'wear this', it leaves me cold. George Brescia hovers more towards the 'wear this' with flashes of narrative. I love what he has to say about color and form, but his insistence that heels are all-important if one is to be truly stylish...yeah, no. George, why don't you cram your tootsies in an impossibly tiny toe box? [This is really strange: Just now, as if my mother had known what I was writing about, suddenly woke up and started recounting her trousseau  from 1958 in detail! Wow. By the time she got to her red linen going-away suit, I wanted to go back and read The Lost Art of Dress.]

2. True Grit - Charles Portis. Audiobook, read by Donna Tartt.  THIS.  It's even better than I had hoped. Tartt is a superb reader and her love for the book shines through. I can't wait to get up in the mornings and do my walk so I can listen. Right now, I'm at the part where Mattie, Rooster and LaBouef are waiting to ambush Lucky Ned Pepper's gang at the sod dugout.

3. Emily, Alone - Stewart O'Nan. This is the sequel to Wish You Were Here. I love O'Nan's precise slices of life. I'm going to be so cranky when I run out of his novels. But wait! There's a nonfiction book that he co-authored with Uncle Stevie! Squeeeeees all around.

4. Discardia - Dinah Sanders. I've just started this book about turning your bouts of organization into a holiday called Discardia. I guess I'm hoping for another version of Marie Kondo to love.

5. And So We Read On - Maureen Corrigan. Corrigan discusses how she gradually fell in love with The Great Gatsby and makes her argument for why it is THE Great American Novel. She's preaching to the choir in my case.  I've also just started this book, but I've fallen into it like a warm bath. Or jumped into it the way Zelda and Scott used to jump into fountains. Good stuff.

It's nice to be in such a congenial reading mood and have so many great choices on the go. Once I finish these, here's what's next up in the queue:

Missoula - Jon Krakauer
Snow Angels - Stewart O'Nan
Last Night At the Lobster - Stewart O'Nan

3 comments:

raidergirl3 said...

I know! Stephen King + Stewart O'Nan? awesome.

I bought the book for my husband years ago, before I read any of O'Nan's books. Still haven't read it though.

I listened to Last Night at the Lobster and quite enjoyed it.

Unruly Reader said...

Can't wait to hear what you think about Discardia. (currently on a decluttering high, after spending the morning on a Konmari spree)

Care said...

I just love reading your thoughts on books. I loved to visit the nursing home and when we got on topics of fashion, it was SO FUN. I think I often fall into that tendency that the past was all black and white so to hear about that favorite emerald green dress, etc. is just wonderful in the telling and the hearing.