My stack is out of control. I am hoping that this holiday weekend affords some serious reading time. I am always fascinated by what other people read, so thought I’d share the titles that are piled on my bedside table right now. I think what people read is a very good snapshot of what it is that fascinates and moves them.
Our Town – Thornton Wilder
Little Bee – Chris Cleve
The Spectator Bird – Wallace Stegner
For the Time Being – Annie Dillard
Inventing the Truth: the Art and Craft of Memoir – William Zinsser
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
The End of the Alphabet – C S Richardson
Half the Sky – Nicholas Kristof
Reviving Ophelia – Mary Pipher
Happiness – Thich Nhat Hahn
The Wishing Year – Noelle Oxenhandler
When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chodron
The Cloister Walk – Kathleen Norris
The Unfolding Now – A H Almaas
I’d love to know what you’re reading.
“Our Town” is my very favorite play. Ever. Reviving Ophelia I read on the exercise bike at the PC of NYC the summer after we graduated. Very interesting stuff.
I’m in the middle of Sarah’s Key (I am drawn to Holocaust fiction) and next I read Cutting for Stone. Little Bee, as you know, really moved me.
The 19th Wife was interesting (and fulfilled my annual summer “escape from polygamy” book quota, as was The Writing on My Forehead.
Can’t wait to hear your take on all of the above 🙂
Right now I’m reading Blue Like Jazz, next up will be If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. After that I think it’s Found Art by Leeana Tankersley.
I’m scared to look deeper into my pile than that for fear of being overwhelmed 🙂
I just finished a decadent, multi-generational love story that forced me to stay up until 1 am many nights (and bedtime is 10 pm!)–Roses, by Leilah Meachum. Not since Beach Music (Pat Conroy) have I read such a big, thick chunk of sweep-me-away loveliness.
I have The Gift of an Ordinary Day (K. Kennison) next in line, then Secrets of a Millionaire Mind. On to “to buy” list, as you know, awaits the sure-to-be-fabulous Anne Lamont.
Have you read Same Kind of Different As Me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore? Very powerful and a true story. How about Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg? LOVED this.
oh, so many of my favorites there! i love your list.
i’m reading wayne muller’s on being, having and doing enough. it’s making me feel calm and sane at the same time.
Start Where You Are – Pema Chodron
Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller
Hand Wash Cold – Karen Mazen Miller
War of Art – Stephen Pressfield (don’t really like this one, stopped reading halfway through and haven’t picked it back up, although I know others have liked and recommended it)
I have several requested at the library, too. 🙂
I love your recommendations.
War *on* Art. Not of.
Actually, it is of. Not on.
I am a space case.
Oooh. Who can resist this question, Lindsey?!?
And, not surprisingly, you’re reading some of my favorites: Cloister Walk and Reviving Ophelia.
Here’s my current bedside stack:
Momma Zen by Karen Maezen Miller
Mirror, Mirror – 40 Folktales for Mothers and Daughters to Share by Jane Yolen & Heidi Stemple
Lift by Kelly Corrigan
Acedia & me by Kathleen Norris
The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison
The Wounding & Healing of Desire by Wendy Farley
The Case For God by Karen Armstrong
It’s Really All About God by Samir Selmanovic
A space case of whom I am very fond! 🙂
The tax return allowed me to stock up on some books! yay! And, I read very slowly. I am still reading my personally signed copy of The Knot by Josh Hanagarne (not an affiliate link, I just think the guy rocks) I’m so happy to have found such a quirky refreshing style, not unlike Tom Robbins, telling an epic and meaningful story slightly reminiscent of “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. Loving it!!
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
Funny story. I just got an email with my pre-overdue notice from the library, and I realized I have two other novels tucked in my bag from Colorado that I still haven’t unpacked! Oxygen by someone whose name I can’t remember, and Middlesex.
Guess I’ll have to renew!
Like Denise I have “Blessings of an Ordinary Day,” and riffing off Chodron I have “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, The Rumi Collection edited by Kabir Helminski, “The Great Gatsby” which was so great on it’s umpteenth read it has to linger on my nightstand, Raymond Carver’s “What we talk about when we talk about love,” “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, Jung’s “The Red Book,” “The Mind in the Cave” by David Lewis Williams and today’s just-arrived gift from a dear friend “Hard Travel to Sacred Places,” by Rudolph Wurlitzer… (which looks fantastic)
and the overflow that can’t fit on the night stand, including a great book on Ashtanga Yoga given by my first Ashtanga teacher and an annotated collection of fairy tales…
And the promise of a long weekend and some potential reading time.
Happy 4th and happy reading.
Hi. Ah this is my favourite question. What r u reading. And this is the answer.
1. The Missing Rose – Serdar Ozkan
2. The wednesday letters – Jason Wright
3.The Turning Point – Fritjof Capra
4.The Order of Light – Haroon Moghul.
5. Think Like Da vinci – Michael Gelb
Anything by Thich Nhat Hanh is worthy of being top of the list!
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is an excellent memoir. Very readable despite dealing with some rough issues – poverty, racism, mental health, the unforgiving environment in Rhodesia.
Happy reading!
What am I reading?
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville (set in a small Australian town – Grenville is such a great Australian writer).
Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Taking Pictures by Anne Enright (short stories – great writer but very intense. I can only read a couple of stories and then need a break).
I love your site, by the way. Such thoughtful, intelligent posts. Thank you 🙂
Julie
My stack is overwhelming me too. In such a good way.
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
The Furious Longing of God by Manning
The Woman’s Guide Through the 12 Steps 🙂
The Beach House by Jane Green
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
and many more….
🙂
Right now just cookbooks and magazines,(and I must check out what everyone else is reading) but on my list are
Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September
My Mother’s Clothes by Jeannette Montgomery Barron and
Love All by Elizabeth Jane Howard.
I tend to like books that are “lighter”–I love Pat Conroy, Anne Siddons, Rosamunde Pilcher…
Oh, and I did just read Lee Smith’s new short stories and loved them so now I need to read all her books. Her Last Girls was wonderful–as a fellow Hollins alum, I prefer Lee Smith’s voice to our other famous alum Annie Dillard. There’s also a new book out called Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross that is getting great reviews. I was in some English classes with him years ago when he was a grad student at my college, and he was good then. Ok, now I want to read instead of working.
Just finished:
The Happiness Project – G. Rubin
Currently Reading:
The Big Short – Michael Lewis
On the list:
Living to Tell the Tale – G. Garcia Marquez
Crossing the Chasm – G. Moore
Traveling Mercies – A. Lamott
Uner the Banner of Heaven – J. Krakauer
Liar’s Poker – M. Lewis
OOOh i want to read when things fall apart.
Though on my list for the moment:
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Next by Stieg Larsson
Click by Ori and Ram Brafman
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Croasley
The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
I could go on but these are for the immediate future
I have alot of young adult fiction on the go…
Camilla by Madeleine L’engle
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
Ordinary by eireann corrigan
Fractures (short stories) by Budge Wilson
the Stones of Mourning Creek by Les Becquets
as well as
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven galloway
several books on gluten intolerance
The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo
Drive by Daniel Pink
Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron
“When Things Fall Apart” has been my/our bible lately.
Sending love.
My own stack is quite daunting right now, and I’m desperate for huge chunks of time to catch up. In the meantime, I plug away. I’m finish up The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson and Bird by Bird. After that it’s on to The Four Agreements and The Thorn Birds. Several on your list above are on my own. If only there were more time!
I just finished “The Lonely Polygamist” by Brady Udall — one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time. On my “to read” list — “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” the second Stieg Larsson book, and Karen Maezen Miller’s “Hand Wash Cold,” which I’m excited to dig into.
One book that I think you’d love is “My Stroke of Insight,” by Jill Bolte Taylor. A neuroanatomist, Taylor had a stroke in ’96 that basically shut down the left hemisphere of her brain. She found herself in the world of the right brain, which, among other things, can only live in the present moment. It was a world she had rarely experienced–a true nirvana. Problem is, the left brain is responsible for speech, movement, most of one’s eyesight, the ability to read, etc., so she had the daunting task of regaining those abilities without upsetting the “brain balance” that she now realized was so crucial to a full life. An amazing book, and a unique take on how to focus on and appreciate the present.