I just listened to a podcast on writing in which the podcaster said that she reads 50 to 100 books per year.  This got me wondering how many books do I read per year.  I’ve never recorded my book reading.  I just make sure that once I finish a book there are others waiting to be read.  Or; safer yet, always have a stack you are reading and you’ll never run out.  In this blog; Wild About Books, I recommend 10 or 12 books a year.  But I probably read three times that many or more.  It is my commitment to you to share only the very best of the books I have read.  Here’s my research going on right now.

My stack today consist of:

1. River Teeth by David James Duncan;  a collection of short stories.  Short stories is one of my least favorite things to read in a book, but David James Duncan is my favorite author and I had not read this book yet. I’m enjoying his writing but I should just re-read “The Brother’s K”; the best book ever written.
2. Five Year Journal:  This is my night journal for jotting down items of the day such as; it rained all day and saw the first glacier lilies of the season.  The cool thing about this journal is that you go through the year and then go back to the beginning of the journal for a new year, for five years.  You can see five April 20’s all lined up on one page.  I’m only on my second year so I can only see two April 20’s.  I can see important information from last year like when I planted the garden or that I played some office pickleball with Loyd.  (Office pickleball is played in the office, you are allowed to play off the furniture, filing cabinets, copiers, etc.  There aren’t any rules and you’ll know when you earned a point).  No office pickleball this year. Sad. But a fun memory to read about in my five year journal.
3. Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann:  I’m taking “young” writer to mean novice or emerging writer.  This book has quick chapters with writing advice that I can read in a couple of minutes.
4. The Sun Magazine, May 2019 issue.  The first section is always the interview.  This month they interviewed Ralph Nader.  It’s very long but I’m enjoying it and read a couple of pages each night.  Ralph Nader is almost as ragingly upset as my mom over our current political situation.
5. Composition Notebook Journal:  This is my morning journal to ensure that I get 15 minutes of writing a day.  It’s just a normal journal where I talk myself through things, bitch about things, or feel grateful for other things.  It’s not just any composition notebook.  It’s’ a 2 subject college ruled 9 1/2 x 6 inch 100% recycled, heavy weight paper composition notebook.  This is also the same style of notebook I used to hand write my novel.  I write with a 9mm mechanical pencil.  All of these details are very important to the writing process.  I could never write on loose leaf, wide ruled paper using one of those ass wipe pens they leave out for customers at Farmer’s State Bank.
6. Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker:  I’m really enjoying this book.  The front cover says it is “The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress”.  Basically it is an optimistic view of the world and its progress through a variety of subjects from heath to the environment to democracy.  Through the use of scientific data, statistics and charts he makes an argument for things such as GMO’s and for immunizations as well as many other subjects.
7. Sense of Style by Stephen Pinker.  Yep, two by Stephen Pinker.  This one is on the kindle.  This is a writing style book.  It’s not easy to read.  But the information I’m able to grab every once and a while makes me keep reading.  Slowly but surely.
8. diy MFA; Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build your Community by Gabriela Pereira.  This is another writing book. Also on the kindle. I believe I do write with focus and read with purpose but I am lacking in build my community.  So, this past week I’ve reached out to two different resources, unknown people, about what the next steps are with my novel.  I’m emailing the first chapter to one of them next week.  Some things happen in life to propel other things in life.  It all works out in a timely manner.
9. This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel:  A novel.  Yay.  Reading for fun.  It’s all fun for me, but a novel is a great get away.  Novels are my favorite.  This is an interesting novel about a family whose youngest son’s transgender personality is quite obvious at a very early age and how the family deals with it.  This is a heart warming story, funny, sad and well done describing the trials of how society accepts or doesn’t accept this girl with a penis.

And to further confess my obsessions;  I got on the library website on this rainy Saturday afternoon and put four books on hold.  Is it a sickness?  Is it a personality trait?  Well, actually, I read a book once about personalities and my INFJ personality’s desire to learn is insatiable.  And the more I read the better I’ll write.  The more I write the more chance I’ll write myself into a new career; a career that fits this INFJ.

Whew!

I love lists.

More great books and a few adventures can be found on Wild About Books.