Half a Dozen Books...

Right now I have six books on my bed. In order of their arrival here, they are:

1) Euripides III

2) Expert Legal Writing

3) "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, & the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa"

4) The Handmaid's Tale

5) Children's Writer's Word Book

6) Writing Picture Books

Variety! The Handmaid's Tale counts towards the Classics reading goal, and the two children's writing books clearly have to do with translating this into a fully-fledged story. (Hint: it involves hitchhiking! No, really, it's okay though. Probably.)

The Greek dramas (supplemented by a volume of Aristophanes comedies in my purse) are light research for supplemental brain learnin'. Yeah I dunno. I just felt inspired to take out some ancient culture from the library. It may or may not have something to do with my percolating idea for NaNoWriMo this year. We'll see.

I checked out "I Heard You Paint Houses", et al from the library today on a whim, pure and simple. I did that thing on Wikipedia where you just keep clicking the intratextual links in the articles until you end up really far away from your starting point... I went from The Golden Girls to Jimmy Hoffa, only, it only took one click. Sofia apparently once claimed to know what happened to him. So clearly that meant I should check out the first book I found at the library about him, right? Right.

And finally, I bought the legal writing book to sort of start preparing myself for law school. When I started college, I was a little behind most of my peers academically because I graduated 14th in my high school class... in Florida. Brightest crayon in the 16-pack of classic colors, but the 64-pack of college includes those damn neons and metallics and, well. Metaphor beat to death, but you get it. So I googled around a little and found that the columns collected in this book assisted practicing lawyers in writing their briefs. One day, I hope to be a brief-writing, practicing lawyer, ergo I should read the book. Maybe I'll get luck and it will teach me how to make that paragraph more interesting?
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Reading Goals

19. Read at least 3 articles in each of these weekly: The Economist, New Scientist, and the New Yorker. Bonus points for taking out a subscription.
54. Finish the Discworld series.
55. (re)Read the complete works of Tennessee Williams.
56. Read 25 "Classics."
57. Read 3 "Russian Classics."
58. Read the complete works of Salman Rushdie.
59. Read every book on the shelf that has not yet been so.
85. Read ten books that are recommended to me.

Details

Each of these goals has its own tag (although 57 will assume the tag of 56, "Classics") and I will post a short summary/review/announcement within two days of finishing any book or article.

19. Read at least 3 articles in each of these weekly: The Economist, New Scientist, and the New Yorker. Bonus points for taking out a subscription.

I really love these magazines but I sometimes... forget about them. Especially with The Economist, I find it a lot easier to read the articles in the physical magazines (well, hell, I usually read them cover to cover if I have an actual copy) than reading on the internet. I also felt this goal would be good because, now that I'm not in college, I've found myself doing a much poorer job of keeping up with the goings-on in the world, and I'm upset about that. With this goal as an active reminder, I won't be able to slack off anymore and let the days pile on into weeks without reading a single article.

54. Finish the Discworld series.

At the end of my freshman writing class at Vassar, a course in the Cog Sci department called "The Science and Fiction of the Mind" (yes, Vassar is awesome like that), my professor gave each of us a sci-fi or fantasy novel that he thought would inspire us to continue writing. Shamefully, I did not pick up the book he gave to me, The Color of Magic, the first in the Discworld series, until the day after graduation. I immediately purchased the second book, and placed a hold at the library on the third, which turned into holds on the fourth, fifth, and sixth - well, by the time I left Portland, I had about 100 pages left in Sourcery, the fifth book (in order of publication, not by story line).

I don't consider it cheating to have a goal to finish a series of which I have already read five books, because THERE ARE 36 OF THEM AND COUNTING, in addition to short stories, graphic novels, and official reference volumes. According to that first link, two more are scheduled for release this year and next. This is a project, but a fun, minimal effort sort of project that I am glad to take on. And though I doubt he'll ever see this, I owe an enormous debt of repentant gratitude to Professor Livingston for introducing me to this wonderful alternate universe.

Books read: 5

55. (re)Read the complete works of Tennessee Williams.

I don't think this goal needs any justification at all, but here it is: Tennessee Williams is the man, and his plays are the bomb-diggity, and if you disagree, you should try reading something other than The Glass Menagerie.

Plays read: 0.66

56. Read 25 "Classics."

Sort of in line with my need to see 25 new great and classic movies, I need to read 25 new great and classic books. I tried a few times to read Jane Austen, and in school, we only read abridged versions of Dickens. My brother sent me Atlas Shrugged for Christmas last year because I never thought it would be my kind of book and he insisted that I had to read it anyway. I havne't yet. Like the movies list, the 50 or so books that make it onto this list will be posted in a separate entry which I will update whenever I complete one of the books on it.

57. Read 3 "Russian Classics."

These are long and epic and have funny-sounding names, so they get their own post. Tentatively, I'm putting War and Peace, The Idiot, and either The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, The Master and Margarita, or the Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol on this list. The Master and Margarita is (relatively) short, so it might sneak up onto the regular classics list to make space for something else.

58. Read the complete works of Salman Rushdie.

Midnight's Children was one of my very favorite books I got to read for class last year. It was my very first experience reading Rushdie, although I was aware of the controversy with The Satanic Verses and everything, I was unaware that he is actually a genius with the English language. Although I will read them loosely in order of publication, the first one up (ie the one that I already own) is East, West, almost the exact median publication. Let the Rushdie love commence!

Rushdies read: 1

59. Read every book on the shelf that has not yet been so.

The is more a target than a definite goal. I'm one of those people who buys books because I like to have them around me, not necessarily because I'm looking for something new to read at the moment. More precisely, I almost never buy just one book. There is, then, quite the backlog on my shelves of books I meant to read but never got around to because of classes, or other books, or whatever. Some of then will fall under the "Classics" reading goal; others I will just read whenever I get need a break from the structured, specific reading goals. Obviously, because I do not intend to stop buying books in the next 2.75 years, this will be a fluid goal, and new books will be incorporated into it.

Backlog finished: 3

85. Read ten books that are recommended to me.

As if I needed more reading on my plate, this is an open call for recommendations for books that I absolutely need to read, right now. Every suggestion, no matter how ridiculous, will be considered. And hey - if only ten books are recommended, the ridiculous one is a shoe-in!

Recommended reading completed: 2

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