So here we are, a little over halfway through the year. I’m feeling the paradox of time flies and time is slow at the same time. As for reading, it never feels like there is enough of it. I haven’t done much in the way of following my reading plan for the year. But then I only make plans as a guide, not as something to stick to. Then again, I still have six months to get going.
Happily, I have new lingering books this month instead of the usual suspects from the past several months. Lingering is Place and Placelessness by E.C. Relph. My excuse is that I focused on finishing the Clarice Lispector biography and didn’t have time or brain power for this one. Also lingering is my April NYRB subscription book, The Crisis of the European Mind by Paul Hazard. It too was set aside for the Lispector biography. I have been reading it regularly though since last week. It has become my before sleep book. But as my eyes kept drooping last night and I had to keep reading the same paragraph over and over, I think it isn’t good to read before bed. At least not when I am tired. Which I usually am before going to bed. Go figure.
Before the Hazard book I tried to read my May NYRB book before bed. In Transit by Anna Seghers is really good but not much happens in it. There is lots of waiting. And the few nights I tried to read it before bed I kept losing track of what was going on. Or rather, what was not going on. That’s when I switched to the Hazard book. Tonight I am going to try a new book I picked up at the library on Saturday. My turn for it finally came round. Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner probably won’t have too many surprising things in it but as a social history I am hoping it will be interesting. It’s about how processed food became the go-to for American meals.
Nonfiction books aren’t the only books that are lingering. Poetry is too. I am still poking my way through Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds. I am almost done with it. It is very good. But more about that another time. Then there is The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, also very good. I am not so far along in this one. Once I finish Sharon Olds though I think the pace on Thomas will pick up.
Last month I said I was about to start reading Tristram Shandy or David Copperfield or maybe something by Hardy on my Kindle. Then the very next day I started reading none of them. Instead I read The Letters of Dorothy Osborne. Just finished those today so you will hear about them tomorrow most likely. Now I really am going to start reading Tristram Shandy. It is queued up on my Kindle so when I sit down on the train tomorrow morning and wake up my book, there it will be.
Another book I have from the library that I requested after reading the article in which Nature Deficit Disorder was mentioned is a book by the man who coined it, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. It’s about the restorative powers of the natural world. It could be good and it could just as equally turn out to be drivel. I’ll let you know.
I’d like to get to Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel this month. And is it too ambitious to also aim for a little armchair travel via something by Patrick Leigh Fermor? It might be, but if the weather keeps on hot and humid I could be spending more time indoors rather than playing in the garden, so you just never know. Then, of course, there will be at least one book that pops up that I will read but had no plans for at all. I wonder what it will be?
“Then the very next day I started reading none of them.” That succinctly sums up my reading life now 🙂 I dusted the dresser drawers a few weeks ago and touched Tristram Shandy. Does touching the book count for anything?
Kidding aside, your mention of ‘Pandora’s Lunchbox’ pleased me and served as a reminder that I need to return to it. I borrowed Warner’s book in March and it really was an eye opener for me and served as a springboard to adopt a lifestyle of clean eating. There are still three holds on that copy so I suppose it will be part of my fall library book pile.
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Vanessa, heh I am glad I am not the only one who plans on reading one book and then picks up another instead! Touching you books always counts even if you don’t pick it up and read it. You have still shown care and intent 🙂 I’ve read most of Michael Pollan’s food books and also Fast Food Nation so I don’t expect there will be too much new in Pandora’s Lunchbox for me, but it is always good to get various perspectives and to be reminded about these things. I think it’s great the book inspired you to eat better!
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Look forward to your take on books to come. I don’t know what the book is like but “Pandora’s Lunchbox” is a very snappy title!
Am reading an interesting non-fiction novel, really an anti-novel by French novelist Laurent Binet who is new to me. The “novel” is called HHhH and is a reconstruction of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942 and the impossibility/obscenity of a novelist writing about such events. It is a trenchant and intelligent read.
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Ian, Isn’t Pandora’s Lunchbox a great title? I started reading it before bed and so far so good. The pace is perfect and it is filled with horror.
I have heard of Binet’s book, lots of pretty good buzz so I put it on my TBR list. Glad to hear it really is good. I will make a note of it and maybe sometime soon it will end up in my reading pile.
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I am feeling your pain. I got overly ambitious and ordered a whole bunch of books from the library (and broke my resolution for the year by buying at least 14 new ones in the last few months – “bad Grad…very bad.”) All the library books came to me at the same time. I finally had to give in to reality and returned all but a few. No way I was going to read them all in 3 weeks, even with renewals. The ones I’ve kept are The Green Man, Kon-Tiki, Fatale, The Round House, and Don’t Look Now. We’ll see if I can get through them. Fatale is very short, but I have a feeling that won’t mean a fast read. (It’s an NYRB book after all…need I say more.) I still have to edit things down, I believe. I’ve almost dropped The Green Man into the return box several times because, of all things, I don’t like the feeling of the paper they used for the pages. I know…weird. And I’ve already read Kon-Tiki (a long time ago) so it might go back too. Can’t wait to hear what you think of Pandora’s Lunchbox. “Filled with horror” sounds perfectly delicious.
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Grad, overindulging at the library is not such a bad thing. I feel bad about returning books unread too but it is much better than having splurged for them at Barnes and Noble. Oh, is Green Man the Amis book? I would really like to read that one. Those NYRB books are deceptively thin. I am fooled almost every time. You’d think I would know better by now! Pandora’s Lunchbox is making me never want to buy anything processed ever again.
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Sounds like the NYRB titles would be early-morning-with-coffee reads rather than before-bed-with-pillow reads for me! Pandora’s Lunchbox sounds like it would be a good match for Colin Campell’s Whole which I just picked up last week. A lot of the material does feel familiar, when you’ve read a bunch on the subject, but hearing it told from a variety of perspectives helps some of the facts stick. (Some!)
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buriedinprint, heh, definitely morning with coffee reads, too bad I have to go to work and can’t spend my mornings reading! I’ve not heard of Campell’s book, but it sounds like the topics are similar. It is sad that food has become such a scary thing!
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I bet you’d find Campbell’s earlier publication of interest, too (The China Study); it’s not necessarily good reading (rather stats-y and science-y), but his personal history adds an interesting angle to it, and the study itself is one that I regularly refer to in those inevitable discussions that one ends up having when she doesn’t eat meat even if one seeks to avoid those conversations as often as possible.
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Ooo, I’ve read a few things about the China Study (not the book but the study itself), so interesting. I’ll have to look for Campbell’s book on it. Thanks for the recommendation!
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I am not doing nearly as much reading as I’d like, but I did wade through a biography of the Surrealists, which was really great. Now I’m switching gears with a Jennifer Wiener book, which was EXACTLY what I needed! I usually hate chick-lit but her books are better, somehow. Instead of making me ill with despair about the dreck being published these days, her books make me feel like I’m reading about friends — super funny, talented, articulate friends who sometimes have fabulous lives that I envy. 🙂
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wherethereisjoy, yay for finishing the surrealist book! After that something frothy is definitely required!
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My reading feels like is going by slowly and I’m reading books which should be easy reads. I think I just start reading too late at night and before i know it I’m falling asleep no matter how thriller the latest thriller is! Does NYRB titles you are reading definitely sound interesting but books that probably require more attention!
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Iliana, yes, I find that even books that shouldn’t cause my eyes to droop fail me some evenings too. Usually around mid-week or when it’s been and especially hot day. Yes, the NYRBs do require more attention. They keep resisting my attempts to turn them into light and easy reading. Darn them!
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Glad you chose Dorothy Osborne … she was completely new to me and I loved your post! As you can see I’m catching up in reverse order. But please, do get to Bringup the bodies this month.
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whisperinggums, I just learned about her recently from another blogger. What a treat she was. I will try very hard to get to Bring Up the Bodies this month 🙂
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*like!*
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PLF is a wonderful writer, but he is definitely one you will want to take your time with and savor! I should pick up one of his travel books, too! I am putting off the Hazrd book just a little longer and am going to read the Turtle book–am starting this weekend. Pandora’s Lunchbox sounds ineresting–will have to check it out myself. I am dealing with moving along slowly with my books, too–must be summer and the heat? 🙂
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Danielle, I want to read PLF because of you! I do hope I manage to get to him this month. Pandora’s Lunchbox is moving along at a good clip and is full of processed food horrors enough to keep a person up at night!
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