Recent 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?