Sunday, July 5, 2009

Don't you ever stop readin'?

It has been a really long time since I have written about what I'm reading, so, since I feel like writing something but don't really have much to write about, I figure I might as well write about the books I'm trying to get through right now.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. This is one of those books that got such great reviews from so many people, I finally caved and picked it up. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was on sale at Target. So far, I'm only about 70 pages in, but it really is interesting. He is talking about how the correlation between the month kids are born and their likihood at being successful hockey players. It is all very interesting, but I'm also finding it hard to read more than 20 pages at a time because I end up thinking too hard about it and losing focus. We'll see how it goes.

Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert. My friend Cierra talked me into this one. She actually didn't talk me into it so much as insisted that I read it. Plus, I found it at the dollar book store. Anyone else sensing a pattern?

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm seeing it at midnight next Tuesday! I can't wait!

Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, Jennifer Scanlon. Helen Gurley Brown is a bestselling author and was the editor of Cosmo for 30 years and is overlooked as a great feminist. I read the review for this book in the NY Times Book Review one Sunday and, rare thing for me to buy hardcovers, too. I am about halfway through and I really find her when a book I'm interested in reading gets a good review from the Times, I go buy it. It's a very fascinating. Jennifer Scanlon has a tendency to be redundant, but overall it is written well and interestingly.

Slumberland. Paul Beatty. So one of the things I miss the most about working at Barnes and Noble are little things called Advanced Reader Copies. The publishers send these out to authors and bookstores to get feedback on the book. When the book actually comes out, they take quotes from this feedback and put it on the cover to try to intice you to buy. Well, once again at my trusted dollar bookstore, I found an ARC of this novel. It is not even out in paperback yet, so it was a major score for me. (Have I mentioned I hate hardcovers?) I read Beatty's White Boy Shuffle in my contemporary African American Lit class and fell in love with him. He writes very lyrically and I think the way he infers rather than tells with his satirical style is brilliant. This is about a DJ's quest for the "perfect beat," which leads him to West Berlin. I think the writing is beautiful, but I'm not quite sure about the plot yet. I just need to keep reading.

Now, here's my dillemma: I can't read fast enough! I want to finish all of these books because I have about 108 other books I want to read, not to mention the fact that I haven't even read the NY Time Books section yet today, which means there will be another 100 books I want to read.

This is just another reason I need to start waking up earlier.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where is this dollar store you've been talking about?

QueenKimmi said...

It's on the corner of San Fernando and Palm across from my Starbucks! All the books are a dollar, but you have to be willing to search a bit.

Anonymous said...

Oh, of course I know which one you're talking about. I definitely have to check it out!