Mid-Year Reading-Like-A-Writer Reality Check-In

I decided early in 2017 that I wanted to read a lot more books. Not entirely a stunning revelation for a writer! I wanted to read more books that aren't required for work, ones that are new-to-me (and not re-reads), books languishing in my to-be-read pile and/or one I hear out about and suddenly must read, now. 

It's working.

Though, you wouldn't know it from my Goodreads tally, because I so often forget to list them--even though, accountability advocate that I am--I had absolutely, positively, definitely told myself I would! Over there, I'm committed to reading 65 books this year, and each time I open the site, I'm confronted with the admonition that I'm "15 books behind"! No, no I'm not, I protest, aloud, in my empty home office. 

One reason the GR tally is off is, ironically, related to the very way I'm getting more reading done: about a chapter before I finish the book I'm currently reading, I start the next. Just a few pages here and there (and yes, it feels like cheating on a trusting boyfriend!), just enough so that when I close a book, that inevitable feeling of loss and abandonment--and sometimes the silly thought that no next book could possibly ever come close--doesn't keep me from opening and starting the next book. 

You know that feeling, don't you, the one that makes you melancholy, wistful, or sad to leave a beloved character or narrator behind. It can sometimes hang about for days, keeping me from starting the next book. Yes, occasionally that feeling was, is, delicious. I actually want to wallow in that dreamy world-of-the-book for a bit longer. 

Already being at least a little bit inside the next book is a reliable way to keep reading, but it's also the reason I forget to record my progress. The trade-off is worth it, though. Those reading gaps, the time between books, were adding up. Let's face it, there's never going to be enough time to read, what with all the other demands on our time, and in a more practical/philosophical/mortal/morbid sense: we're all going to outlive out to-be-read pile, after all.

A bit sobering, but there you have it.

Another tiny trick that's helping: making sure the current book is on the same level of the house as I am. Really, I'm not kidding. If I remember to carry the book downstairs in the morning, then when I'm done working for the day (in my upstairs home office), it's handy while I'm waiting for dinner to cook, or relaxing on the couch or patio, and when I can't avoid commercials when watching live TV. Likewise, when I remember to bring the book back upstairs at the end of an evening, it's more likely I'll read before bed and/or in the early morning, when the husband leaves very early for work and I could sleep longer but just can't. 

Seems silly, but if I have to go back up or down those 11 stairs well, instead of reading more of the current book, I may grab my phone and scroll for a mindless few minutes that turns into an hour that sucks the life out of reading time.

Right now, I'm making my way through a somewhat specialized section of the to-be-read pile (having added about six more in the books-by-MFA-friends category, including Stolen Beauty). Next, I'm eyeing novels that, for various reasons logical and/or esoteric, have been tempting me from the master to-be-read pile: Lincoln in the Bardo, The Mare, The Great House, The Cottonmouths (won in a giveaway over at The Debutante Ball). Oh but maybe first, or in-between, the memoirs Hunger, Year of the Horse, and Guesswork. Or...

That's it for today. I have another 30 minutes before I need to get ready for a workshop. What shall I do?

Image - top, Flickr/CreativeCommons-Tim Geer

Summer Reading List with a Twist

I mentioned last week that part of my summer reading list is included in a round-up. What I didn't explain was that I constructed my list with one criteria in mind: books written by someone with whom I once shared a classroom during the MFA program I completed nine years ago, or a writer who followed or preceded me in that same program.

I bought those authors' books when they were released, to support my fellow alumni in their writing lives, and because I genuinely want to read them. Inevitably, the To-Be-Read pile grows worryingly high, the books I thought I'd read soon get buried, and before you know it, I'm hopelessly behind. I suppose this is forever the case for anyone who loves to read and who has to read for work...the want-to-read list must always wait until the have-to-read list is completed, and we hope there's some time and mental energy left over.

The summer reading list idea took hold when I learned there's to be a reunion later this month for the Stonecoast Program MFA (University of Southern Maine). Although I'm still not sure I can get to it, the idea alone was enough to kick off my list. That, and this spring I was leading a memoir writing group at my local library just when the staff was preparing the children's section for the big summer reading extravaganza. 

I remembered back to all the summer reading I did as a child, how much I longed for those long unstructured summer days when I could sit under a tree in the backyard with a pile of library books a foot high. Mom would periodically bring me a glass of lemonade, and ask, "Still reading?" Yup.

Here's the Stonecoast part of my summer list (I'm also sneaking in a few others). Perhaps you'd like to add a few to your TBR pile!

Those I've completed (you can read my reviews over on my Goodreads page):

The Butcher's Daughter by Florence Grende, a memoir of growing up as the child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors. 

A Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol, an unusual novel about plants, ecoterrorism, family, and being different. 

In the Context of Love by Linda K. Sienkiewicz, a novel of family secrets and the always challenging path of love. (Linda's Q/A on that book's path to publication is here.)

Next up: 

Writing Hard Stories by Melanie Brooks, in which she interviews writers who tackled difficult memoirs (also- find Melanie's guest post here).

The Language of Men by Anthony D'Aries, a memoir of father-son love, travel, and discovery. 

Pigs Can't Swim by Helen Peppe, a memoir on growing up the youngest of nine in a hardscrabble Maine woods family. 

Love & Fury by Richard Hoffman (an MFA mentor of mine), a memoir of the extremes of male family relationships.

I just know that ten minutes after I post this, I'll find a couple more Stonecoast student or faculty books in my teetering pile. And I'll move them over to the summer list. And maybe I'll get lucky and get them all read before that other pile/list insists on my attention: the books that I must read before my students are required to in September.

Meanwhile, I'm pouring myself some lemonade and heading outside.

What are you reading this summer?

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- June 30, 2017 Edition

> From Book Expo 2017, held in Manhattan last month, Shelf Awareness summed up key points of a panel for authors on Working with Indie Bookstores.

> Did you know that Tracy K. Smith is the new U.S. Poet Laureate?

> At her tumblr, Roxane Gay has some tips (25 in fact) on "How to be a Contemporary Writer."

> Meaty interview with Lidia Yuknavitch at The Millions (in conjunction with Bloom).

> What do MFA instructors read in downtime? My colleagues (and I) talked personal summer reading lists at the Bay Path MFA Director's Blog.

> Feeling proud of my former coaching client Emily Wanderer Cohen, whose new book From Generation to Generation: Healing Transgenerational Trauma Through Storytelling -- which focuses on the influence of her mother, a Holocaust survivor and educator -- has been doing exceedingly well in its first few days.

> Feel awkward doing self-promotion? It's not a rare disorder, as Sonya Huber explores at Proximity Magazine.

>I'm getting a bit more active over on Goodreads. If you'd like to connect, find me here. And on Instagram, I'm @LisaRomeoWriter

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons--1950sUnlimited

Write. Read. Repeat. Susan Sontag said it first. I just follow Directions.

By now, you probably know that I simply do not understand writers who aren't also constantly reading. Because how--other than through reading--do we even begin to want to be writers? And what's paramount to learning more about writing than reading?

I'm over at Story Dam today, participating in their April A to Z blogging challenge. I was asked to name a favorite bit of writing advice, and then say something about it.

It's posted today under "D is for Directions" and is a brief commentary on the Susan Sontag command: “Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as needed."

"I’ve heard this advice interpreted several ways. Some folks think it means that you should write and then read what you have just written, then rewrite it. And of course, that’s true. But I take this advice in the broader sense..."

Read the rest here.

Image: Story Dam

Read-Along. Like a Ride-Along. But with books.

Let's pick up with the reading theme from the last post, shall we? I mentioned that I want to read a lot more than what is required for my work life. But there's one part of work-related reading that straddles the work and pleasure reading columns.

It's what I call the Read-Along. This is something I offer to do with my writing coaching clients, or sometimes writers for whom I'm editing a manuscript that's in need of more-than-moderate revision.

What we do is carefully choose a book that speaks to the very particular writing challenges that client is facing—and then we both read it, simultaneously.

Sometimes we read just a chapter at a time, and I follow that up with a series of questions. Or I ask the writer to note down observations. Other times, we read bigger chunks, then we check in, sometimes with a longish phone or Skype call. Or we read it through quickly, then make our way through again slowly, zeroing in on something in particular—say, the chapter endings, or time movements, or structure.

On one hand, it's like a tiny little book club for two. But it's really a very focused reading-like-a-writer activity, customized for that writer's interests and writing goals, and making some of the same demands as the reading annotations required in many MFA programs.

Sometimes we're in search of quality prose, a tight story, a prime example of a form. Or we're looking at a particular type of book or story structure or organization; a genre that's new to the writer-client; maybe a POV she's never written in before.

Though it's often a book I'm already familiar with, and I read it again as the client reads, some of the most memorable read-alongs in the past couple of years were books that were new-to-me.  

I've read-along to a couple of young adult novels (with a fiction writer who typically wrote very long novels for adults); an emotional memoir (with a journalist who wanted to stretch beyond just-the-facts); and a humorous novel made up of very short chapters (with a nonfiction writer hoping to turn dysfunctionally funny family episodes into fiction).

Though typically separated by hundreds (maybe thousands) of miles, being "on the same page" (sometimes literally on the same day) as a writer I'm working with is a singularly enriching experience. It's one thing to say, "go read this book." It's another to be having the parallel experience, and knowing we're going to discuss it later.

I have one such read-along coming up. This time, it's a themed essay collection—for a writer-client itching to edit an anthology. While her story editing skills are strong, the idea of assembling the varied pieces is a mystery. We're going to be looking at the mix of essays and authors; how the pieces differ and what ties them together; the order and flow of essays; and the variety and level of prose in the different pieces. (And, as it's a book I haven't read before, it will do double duty for my 2017 reading challenge list.)

I can't quite recall how I got the idea for the Read-along; it may have simply been a client frustrated with something, and me thinking of a book she could read that might help…and then realizing I'd be better equipped to help if I re-read that book too. Or maybe something else. What I know is that the activity seems to deliver beyond what I'd originally hoped. Plus, it's kind of fun.

Reading should be fun. Even when it's not precisely "pleasure reading." Right?

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommone-DanielWehner

A Reading and Writing Gift, Courtesy of Contests Not Won and Journals Finally Opened

You don't enter a lot of writing contests, because you're frugal (okay, cheap) and entry fees deplete your meager annual marketing budget, and because you're not competitive by nature. (Perhaps you are convinced you used up your competitive mojo inside the horse show arena years ago, and that once winning a television and later a bicycle was the limit of your blind luck.)

When you do enter a writing contest, you're usually enticed by a theme you're already interested in writing something about (or have already started), or by the allure of publication in a journal or by a press you like. You try not to even consider the prize money (see above, re: not competitive/all luck expired).

Results from the recent Rose Metal Press CNF Chapbook Contest

Still, over the years (okay, decades), you've managed to rack up a few finishes in the tops three, and in competitions that whittle the field down first, occasionally been on finalist lists (most recently, in the Rose Metal Press Creative Nonfiction Chapbook contest). You've always tried, when awaiting contest results, to think of it as no more or less meaningful than a regular submission (okay, you lie to myself).

One of the "consolation prizes" of not winning a contest with an entry fee run by a print journal is often a complimentary subscription. So, you get rejected one way or another (alas, even a finalist finish is still a rejection...), and then at some point later on, an issue of the journal lands in your mailbox with a thud.

Do you read it immediately, eager to delve into the stories and poems and essays by writers who weren't as unlucky as you? Or do you let it sit on your desk or coffee table for days or weeks or months, avoiding the words of others who were luckier (okay, more skilled) than you?

You do both. Depending on mood, available reading time, the phase of the moon, the artwork on the journal cover. 

Then, on a blistering cold winter Sunday, when you really should be working upstairs in your home office, instead you build a roaring fire in the living room (okay, your husband builds it for you; it's Valentine's Day after all and he wants you to be comfy so he can sneak off to watch sports on TV), make yourself a big mug of coffee, cuddle under a quilt, and see what there is to read on the coffee table.

There is the winter issue of The Missouri Review. You open it, scan the table of contents for nonfiction pieces, find two, and read them, at first grudgingly, then with building interest, then hungrily. They are both so good. 

First, the one that intricately and seamlessly (and incongruously, but ingeniously) combines mistakes made in bird watching and the fallibility of eye witness testimony in criminal cases. 

Then, the one about the lousy family dog that keeps eating the children's pets, which seems like it would be a lousy idea for a piece of narrative nonfiction, but paragraph by paragraph convinces you once again that any subject, in the hands of a skilled and honest and witty writer, can become an excellent essay.

You finish your coffee, put the kettle on for tea, grab some cookies, stoke the fire and add more wood. Your husband is still in the family room watching a rerun of his beloved Giants winning the 2008 Super Bowl, but you interrupt, and wave your teenage son over and read them a terrifically funny line from the essay about the horrid dog, and the three of you laugh together.

Then you take your tea back to the living room and read the one about the bad dog all over again, and notice things, so many things. Then you read the one about birding and witnessing again and notice more things. And even though these are not the exact pieces that won the contest you entered many months ago, and instead of feeling as if these other writers are luckier than you, you simply are grateful for the chance to have read them.

And then you find one of those writers on Twitter, and tell her how much you enjoyed the one about her awful dog, and soon, the two of you are tweeting back and forth, and later she says that your praise of her writing has made her week. And suddently your day is made too.

Soon, you feel as if you didn't get a consolation prize at all (okay, maybe a little.) But you eventually go back upstairs to your office and for a brief moment you wish you had a horrible, no good, very bad dog to write about, but then you smile and pull out something you've been working on. And it all starts again. 

Stuff My Students Say, Part 18. Or, the Perks of Pulling a Book from the To-Be-Read List (and finally reading it)

"I can't believe you haven't read ______"  

Sometimes I say this to (or more often, think it about) a student. But just as frequently, a student says this to me. Sometimes one of my sons says it to me. When both of the latter happen, I read the book, almost any book they've mentioned. Especially if, a student (especially a twenty-something or younger student) writes something into a piece of creative work that I will never understand in a nuanced way unless I have read the book.

Which brings me to why I recently read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

What happened was a college-bound teenager wrote a sentence, in a personal essay about how friendships were ending as the narrator moved on to a new phase in life, and that sentence included the phrase, "…about the time we felt infinite…" When I first read it, I thought it was simply an innovative, original way to use the adjective infinite, and said so in class, and was met by incredulous, dumb-founded looks.

"It's from the movie," one of the students (not the writer) piped up. "You know, from Perks of Being a Wallflower."

I didn’t know, and said so.

"It's in the book too," another offered. "It's one of the most famous lines."

Now I was cornered, and my interest was piqued, and I immediately put the book on my mental to-be-read-sooner-rather-than-later list.

I thought about the fact that staying current with books and their influence on younger writers is a losing proposition—the to-be-read pile grows dangerously high and at a rapid rate, and probably everyone's inclination (okay, my inclination), is to first read what speaks most to my own position in the world.  On the drive home that day—and trust me, 45 minutes is quite long enough to be thinking about this stuff--I realized that regardless of one's reading load, or how curious one manages to stay about books that might fall just outside one's selfishly self-interest zone, one can never really catch up. Or at least, I can't. But I can try.

By the time I got home, I was rather rabidly curious about what it means to feel "infinite." And something else. Something niggling at the back of my brain about this book (not about the movie, though of course I had been aware when it was first released, of its popularity); but I was remembering something about the novel in connection with my younger son, who is now 17.

As soon as I walked through the door of my home office, I realized the book was already (buried) in my to-be-read pile. Because my son had recommended it, oh about two years ago.

So I read it. And I was charmed—maybe infinitely so, by the tone, voice, structure, characters, story. (I also automatically like all paper books that are small enough to slip into a not-so-big purse, but that's another story.)

I finally get the infinite quote. I began thinking about when in my own younger life, I'd once felt something like infinite with a particular group of very important friends. There were so many passages and sentences I loved and remember (many of which are included on this list, or this one if you're on Goodreads), and include: “I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be,” and the one that for me, sums up the core, the heart of the book and its wise young narrator: “Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense.” 

Then of course, there's also this: "It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book." 

Of course he does. Of course I do, sometimes. Especially if the book is both happy and sad. Which brings me to my next to-be-read book…

You can read the others 17 installments of Stuff My (Writing) Students Say here.

Images:  Book cover - Wikipedia; Opened book - Flickr/Creative Commons/duh.denise; other - mine.

The Book List That's Constantly Changing, and Remains the Same

Over at Facebook, this pops up from time to time: The 10 Books That Changed Your Life. I'm often tagged to chime in, and have always conveniently "forgotten". For me that top 10 list changes year to year, sometimes month to month. What I think "changed my life" at 12 fell off the list by 20, what moved me enormously at 30 slid away when I tried to re-read it at 40. And so on. Plus – changed my life how? Which life? My reading life? My entire life? My life as a writer? 

Recently though I saw it worded slightly differently: The 10 books that have stayed with you. I interpret that as the ones I keep remembering, the ones I find myself opening at random and reading from the middle of for no reason at all, the ones that are perhaps more meaningful not because they are the finest literature ever produced, but because I read them at a time in my life when I was especially open to the story, or the writing, or both.

I've left off the true classics all writers admire and return to, and I'm probably forgetting some marvelous contemporary soon-to-be-classics, but I've limited my list to modern books I've read in the last 15 years or so—and the ones I can remember distinctly and with pleasure, and without walking over to my bookshelves. I've mixed the genres together. And I went way over 10. Hey, it's my list and I'll do what I want with it!

Living Out Loud – Anna Quindlen

The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

Mountain City – Gregory Martin

Blue Peninsula – Madge McKeithen

In Revere, In Those Days – Roland Merullo

Small Wonders – Barbara Kingsolver

The Opposite of Fate – Amy Tan

Sleepless Days – Sue Kushner Resnick

The History of Love – Nicole Krauss

Picturing the Wreck – Dani Shapiro

Expecting Adam – Martha Beck

The Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst

Swimmer in the Secret Sea – William Kotzwinkle

Manhattan Memoir – Mary Cantwell

We Didn't Come Here for This – William B. Patrick

Making Toast – Roger Rosenblatt

A Slant of Sun – Beth Kephart

Here if You Need Me – Kate Braestrup

I Married You for Happiness – Lily Tuck

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

Without a Map – Meredith Hall

Eclectic, yes? Sure. I'm also sure this is incomplete, which I'll realize and clap my forehead for, as soon as I get up from where I'm sitting in my bedroom composing this post, and wander into my office and scan my bookshelves. Or tomorrow, when I read a new book and then can't stop thinking about it for a week or month or year. Or maybe this evening when I plan to read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, who passed away yesterday (and which I somehow never read).

Do you have a list like this? One that would make no sense to anyone but you? A list of books, which although they are excellent books – probably signals as much or more about you, and who you were when you first read it, and why you keep picking it up again --  than about the book itself? I'd love to hear (especially if we have a book in common)!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - The Lost Gallery

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- February 20, 2015 Edition

> Ann Hood--novelist, memoirist, essayist, editor, teacher--talks about her latest novel, her start as a writer, process, and much more, in an interview at The Writer. She was one of my MFA mentors, and I continue to learn from her, always.

> If you're here, you're a reader. Maybe you'd like to up your reading tally for the year? Check out the 50 Book Pledge (or 75, 100, 150, 200).

> The New York Times Sunday Magazine has been "re-launched" (and redesigned, re-imagined) in print and online. Except for those (like me) who are upset at the loss of the Lives column as a freelance essay venue, I'm hearing mostly favorable reviews about the first installment.

> Speaking of the Times, the Modern Love column (in the Sunday Styles section) continues as one of the most coveted pieces of literary real estate for creative nonfiction writers. This teleseminar on March 22, by an ML author, looks worth the time, and it's affordable.

> If you blog or maintain a website, you probably need stock images from time to time. HubSpot Blogs breaks down "10 Sites for Free, Non-Cheesy Stock Photos."

> Writer's Digest suggests "9 Ways to Break Into Major Markets with Personal Essays."

> My involvement with The Writers Circle (northern NJ) continues with teaching, and for the second time, acting as co-editor of a twice-yearly online journal. It features the work of some current and past adult, teen, and child writers. Here's the latest installment; for most, it's their first publication.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons, Lazurite

Three Good Books. Out of Three Hundred. No, Three Thousand. No...

Last year, when my husband helped me re-do my home office (after 23 years), we lined two-and-a-half walls with floor-to-ceiling, walk-to-wall, black wood bookshelves. I think they look great against the new red walls, and it's a huge change from my previous system for books, comprised of hand-me-down half-height bookcases, used beige office shelves, and repurposed odd pieces of furniture topped with baskets, milk crates, plastic stacking shelves, and clumsy piles (plus boxes stacked in a corner).

Would it surprise anyone to learn that it wasn't nearly enough room for my books, even after a careful reduction? That a second culling yielded four boxes of books, now in the garage awaiting pick-up by a terrific local service that matches no-longer-needed books with organizations that want and need them? That two more boxes are in the basement; I'm undecided about their fate. That at the end of every class I teach I haul a suitcase of books into the classroom -- duplicates of books I love, books left over from contests I've judged, books I didn't enjoy but are well written enough that others might -- and still, the shelves groan?

Honestly I don't expect the situation to get much better, and though I am slowly coming around to making use of my Nook, I don't mind a bit. When you are a writer, when you have a constant need to locate good material to teach from and learn from, when reading is like breathing, and when you work at home, being surrounded by shelves that spill over is a good problem. 

Which brings me to a month or so ago when Drew Myron, a lovely writer (who contributed a guest post here with tips on giving a reading), asked me to participate in the "3 Good Books" series at her website, Push Pull Books. She assigns each invited writer a specific topic based on what she knows about the writer's work. I was happy she asked me to talk about books that feature personal essays, and even more pleased that I could pick not-so-new books (the idea is to suggest what may be missing from other writers' shelves). I decided to narrow it a bit further to essay collections by women writers which have influenced me and my writing (I hope).

To do the "research" for this assignment, I didn't have far to go. I simply stood up from my seat at my still-new writing table (in the office re-do, I tossed the desk and the entire idea of a desk), and traveled a few feet to spend some quality time with my bookshelves. The section that houses essay collections is a single unit unto itself, about two feet wide and seven shelves high. It was a good trip.

My "3 Good Books" guest post is now up, and I hope you will jump over to Drew's blog to read it.  And I also hope you have shelves that spill their riches all over your home and/or office too!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- May 9, 2014 Edition

For your weekend reading, skimming, rooting, bookmarking pleasure...

> ASJA (the American Society of  Journalists and Authors) has made two audio recordings from panels at their very recent annual conference available at no charge to the public - one on copyright, the other on writing about trauma survivors. Check it out.

> Soon-to-be debut novelist Beth Cato weighs in on what she did when she know in her gut that a crucial piece of feedback, from a well-qualified source, was all wrong for her story.

> Over at Wordserve Water Cooler, Lucille Zimmerman sums up the five marketing surprises -- pro and con -- she didn't learn until after her first book was published.

> Want to know how to get published on McSweeney's (like my writing friend Candy Schulman did today)? A McSweeney's editor has tips (and it's not, contrary to popular thinking, (only or at least all) about coolness and hipster cred).

> At SheWrites, learn how one writer created a life crammed with books and reading.

> Ever daydream about starting a very small press?  Spenser Madsen did and he's (bruised but) not sorry.

> Frustrated over how slowly your (here it comes, I'm going to use that dreaded word, get ready, and I apologize in advance) *platform* seems to be growing?  Alexandra Franzen has some incredibly good advice on adjusting our perspective.

> Finally, one of those very cool, ever so slightly awful Buzzfeed lists, this time "33 Amazingly Useful Websites You Never Knew Existed."  I saved you some scrolling time -- definitely useful, or at least, interesting to writers:  the Online Etymology Dictionary; Practical Typography (everything blessed thing you want to know); WriteWord's Word Frequency Counter (for when you suspect you overuse certain words; you're usually right, by the way); Mathway (it will solve anything; because we writers do words, not numbers); and PrintWay (for when you absolutely want to print it, but without all the ads and other website wonkiness).

Have a great weekend!

Image: Windell Oskay/Flickr, Creative Commons

Of Tennis and Reading: Love

My son wants to join the tennis team this spring, so to get back in shape, he's signed on for a series of weekly two-hour evening lessons. And I cannot wait, because at the huge tennis bubble, there is lousy cell reception, and from what I can deduce, no wifi.

I found out for myself, the minute he went through from the viewing area to the courts and I pulled out my phone to let my husband know where we were. I soon noticed: no one on phones--not bored parents, not teenagers awaiting rides or their turn on the courts, not younger kids hanging about while siblings swung rackets, not employees. Even the television was on a low volume.

Bliss.

That was last week, and I was grateful to pass the time mostly talking with another mom, something that doesn't happen so often beyond the middle school years. I wandered around the building a bit, but there's nothing much to explore -- a small tennis shop, a gym surprisingly empty and quiet, a closed hair salon.

This week, I have something else in mind: I'm going to read. Maybe for two hours. And no one will email, ding, ring, tweet, or message me. Well, they might, but I won't know; not unless I make the long walk back to the dark, cold parking lot – and I'm not that much in love with technology.

I might write some too, given as I always have a notebook in my purse, but I've been craving a long reading stretch, somewhere away from the background buzz of undone household chores, unedited client pages, to-be-commented-on student papers—and the cooking and laundry (always the cooking and laundry!). I remember having these almost enforced unfilled time blocks more frequently when my sons were younger and there was more time spent on sports fields and car pool lines, in church basements, indoor soccer bubbles, and waiting areas. Now, they are hard to come by naturally, harder still to schedule.

I'm not sure yet what I'll bring besides a few unread sections of the print Sunday New York Times, though the choices are plentiful. On my desk are a poetry collection and an ARC of a memoir, both to be read in advance of interviewing the authors (sounds like work but mostly pure pleasure), an anthology of short essays I've been dipping into, a novella I've been meaning to reread, and fat new novel, beckoning.

The best part is that the lessons will go on for weeks and start just early enough in the evening that my husband won't be home yet, so I'll be chauffeuring. Now, let's hope no one at the tennis center decides it will be a good idea to rectify the signal "problem".

Photo by HoriaVarlan/Flckr Creative Commons

Book Lists, of All Kinds.

The Book List.  Do you have one?  I have several. One is a list of the books I own and have (somewhere) in the house. This comes in especially handy when one of my kids needs a required book for school, not to mention when I nearly buy a third copy of a book I'm sure I want to read someday. Another is a list of books I want to buy or borrow from the library or trade for. A third is the list of books being published soon by writer friends and acquaintances, so that (hopefully) I'll remember to lend some support. Still another is a list of the books I need (and usually want) to read to prepare for an upcoming class or assignment.

Then there is the list I want to add – the List of Books I've Read This Year. Except for during my MFA program, this list has been missing from my life for decades. Growing up, I conscientiously kept a list of the books I read every year. I know many of my writing friends still do keep such a list and I don't know why I fell out of the habit, probably coinciding with completing college some ahem-something years ago.

As a reading obsessed child and teenager – way before blogging -- adding a book to the list was a source of pride and more; it was a way to document for myself that maybe all that reading was adding up to something, that I hadn't merely just been (as my mother often snarled) sitting on my butt. How I would love to be able to look back at those lists today!

As an adult who now interacts with words and writing every day, wanting to once again have a Books I've Read list may represent something else; I am not sure exactly what yet. However, I do know I want to read more (but doesn't everyone, except maybe my husband?). I mean a lot more, and list lover that I am, maybe a list of what I actually accomplished will be a motivator to keep up the reading pace.

Another reason I'm reviving the Books I've Read list is I enjoy adding to a list almost as much as I like crossing things off a to-do list. I like to watch a list grow when it means maybe I've grown a little too (isn't that what reading is really all about anyway?)

Finally, I think having a list will motivate me not to let too much time go by between finishing one book and starting another. Sure, there's that delicious time period when I close the back cover of one book and don't want to move on to another just yet; I want to remain in the world that author created for just a bit longer.

Problem is, if I linger too long, I get upset with myself for not starting that next book. So along with my new list is this new idea – I'm not to put a book on the just-read list until I've selected the next book to read and placed it, physically, in my path, for the following morning, say. This is easier said than done because there are so very many books piled on my To Be Read shelf and because often I need to gauge what kind of mood I'm in at the end of one book before choosing the next.

I don't plan to post the list here (who needs that?), but on more frequent occasions than in the past I'm probably going to mention what book just made it on to the list. 

(Note to those who receive posts via email:  No, I don't have a balky space bar on my computer. Blogger and Feedburner are having a problem with the spacing between words. I'm trying out a few suggested fixes, but my powers are limited, so I'm hoping the tech folks get this sorted out soon. Thanks to those who sent emails to alert me.)

What I'm reading, perusing, studying, scanning, dipping into, skimming, leafing through and poring over.

In my experience most writers love dictionaries and thesauruses, some love style manuals, others even adore grammar guides. I love them all, which explains my pleasure reading this week – The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus, by Joshua Kendall.

I guess it didn't surprise me that Roget probably suffered from what today would be called obsessive compulsive disorder. He spent nearly his entire childhood on the tasks of categorizing, listing and codifying everything that comprised his world – people, events, nature, scholarly subjects, animals, gardens, body parts, books, relationships, vegetables.

I haven't finished the book yet, but the other day, when I heard something about promising new treatments that would maybe one day eradicate OCD, I couldn't help but feel a pang of – well, I don't know quite what.

Surely I wouldn't want anyone who must deal with an OCD that impairs their life to continue to suffer when a treatment is one day available. Yet I could not help but also think that the world is probably a richer, more creative place because of the books, films, inventions, ideas, and artwork produced by those who had/have OCD, as well as many other disorders. What would writers have done for two centuries without Roget's Thesaurus? Aren't we all enriched a little bit because of his contribution?

Likewise, I thought of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has worked tirelessly over the last 40 years to redesign the modern American slaughterhouse based on her uniquely visual thought patterns, an intuitive sense of what calms herd animals, and an innate geometry ability. Her book about life as an autistic child and adult (recently an award winning HBO film) has also contributed greatly to people's understanding of autism.

The world seems to need all kinds of minds.