Recent Reading

Posted by Cyn | Filed under NaBloPoMo, Reading

I’ve fallen out of the prac­tice of writ­ing book reviews, for some rea­son. There are two lit­tle wid­gets there to the side of the blog that always show the cov­ers of the books I’m cur­rently read­ing and some of those that I’ve recently read, though.

Yes, I do keep that many books going at once, because I keep one ebook in progress each on my Nook, phone and iPad in addi­tion to an audio­book and a dead-​​tree book or two. I really hate being with­out read­ing mate­r­ial, so that way I know I’ve always got some­thing good at hand. The book on the Nook is pretty much always fic­tion, while the oth­ers are usu­ally non-​​fiction.

The most note­wor­thy of my recent fin­ishes is Reamde, by Neal Stephen­son (one of my favorite authors). No, I didn’t mis­spell the title, but the spelling is an impor­tant plot point. Those who enjoyed Crypto­nom­i­con are espe­cially likely to enjoy this one. I rec­om­mend it to every­body, though, includ­ing those who think they don’t like sci­ence fiction.

I’m con­tin­u­ing to slog my way through George R.R. Mar­tin’s Song of Ice and Fire, recently fin­ish­ing A Storm of Swords and imme­di­ately pick­ing up A Feast for Crows. Read­ing the books while watch­ing A Game of Thrones has been inter­est­ing, as it brings the changes into sharp focus.

The book I’ve been read­ing on my phone for quite a few months (I sel­dom have rea­son to read on that) is Michael Shermer’s The Believ­ing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Pol­i­tics and Con­spir­a­cies — How We Con­struct Beliefs and Rein­force Them as Truths. It is inter­est­ing mate­r­ial but writ­ten in an exces­sively dry man­ner, and I’m start­ing to think that per­haps I should have cho­sen to lis­ten to it as an audiobook.

My iPad read­ing is rel­a­tively new, Hap­pier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Last­ing Ful­fill­ment by Tal Ben-​​Shahar. While Ben-​​Shahar isn’t as well-​​known in pop­u­lar cir­cles as some other authors, his work is inte­gral to pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy and the study of hap­pi­ness as a phenomenon.

I find it peace­ful to lis­ten to audio­books while stitch­ing. My cur­rent audio­book is Quiet: The Power of Intro­verts in a World That Can’t Stop Talk­ing by Susan Cain. I’m find­ing it so rich that I keep hav­ing to go back and lis­ten to bits over again, or pause the record­ing to reflect. I strongly rec­om­mend this one to absolutely any intro­vert or any­one who deals with intro­verts (that means every­body). I may well write an entire post about the sub­jects it brings up later.

My main print book is Polyamory in the 21st Cen­tury: Love and Inti­macy with Mul­ti­ple Part­ners by Deb­o­rah Anapol. I owe thanks to Uncle Ron for loan­ing me his copy of this one, but I really need to get my own copy. More thoughts on this later, as well.

My sec­ond print book, which I intend to review for Fibrant Liv­ing, is The Fibromyal­gia Den­tal Hand­book: A Prac­ti­cal Guide to main­tain­ing Peak Den­tal Health by Flora Parsa Stay.

With all the dark­ness and the huge size of the Mar­tin books, I’m start­ing to crave some light read­ing, so I’m seri­ously con­sid­er­ing putting Feast on hold for some­thing fluffy. I don’t think there’s any­thing incred­i­bly fluffy in the Nook, but I’m sure I’ll find some­thing before too long, even if I have to stoop to a light beach romance or the like. There’s only so much death, doom, and despair one woman can stand!

What are you read­ing? What do you sug­gest I read?

Permalink | June 6th, 2012

4 Responses to “Recent Reading”

  1. Hope Says:
    June 8th, 2012 at 7:15 pm

    How do you feel about young adult fic­tion? I find it can be quite refresh­ing :) I’m cur­rently on the third book of the Percy Jack­son and the Olympians series — Titan’s Curse. They can be a bit pre­dictable, which I don’t mind. So far, the action keeps the story mov­ing, and the inte­gra­tion of Greek mythol­ogy keeps me intel­lec­tu­ally interested.

  2. Cyn Says:
    June 8th, 2012 at 9:33 pm

    I very much enjoy YA fic­tion, and haven’t read any lately other than the Hunger Games tril­ogy. I’ll have to look for the Percy Jack­son series!

  3. Teesachu Says:
    June 12th, 2012 at 11:47 pm

    For fic­tion, I’m cur­rently read­ing (well, lis­ten­ing, we’ve got the audio­book) to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It’s a bit on the YA side, but if you like geek humor, ref­er­ence jokes, and 80s nos­tal­gia, it’s a lot of fun.

    On the non­fic­tion side, I bought an audio­book copy of No Idle Hands: The Social His­tory of Amer­i­can Knit­ting by Anne L. McDon­ald off iTunes. Prob­a­bly the most enter­tain­ment I’ve got­ten out of $7 in a while. I’ve lis­tened to it at least 4 times now. It takes what could be a rather dry his­tor­i­cal sub­ject and makes it enter­tain­ing. Also, it’s really good to craft to :)

  4. Cyn Says:
    June 19th, 2012 at 9:34 am

    I’ve heard of Ready Player One. I’ll look for it at the library. No Idle Hands sounds absolutely won­der­ful! If the library doesn’t have it, I’ll request that they get it. Thanks!