booklover at heart

i absolutely love books. love reading them. love buying them. love the feel of them in my hands. love the look of them on my bookshelves, stacked on my endtable, on my desk, on my art table.

when i have spare money, i buy books. if i love it, it joins the shelves of my favorites. if i don't, i donate it to the library. in this small town sometimes our library doesn't have the budget for books that aren't on the bestseller lists.

i put my very favorite fiction books and my art/craft books in my libraything catalog (see right column). maybe one day i'll catalog the other books i have like the j.d. robb "in death" series, the science fiction ones by asimov and pohl, etc.

the books above are my favorite ones related to mental illness. except the jhumpa lahiri one. the title just seemed to fit so well. :D they are:

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament Kay Redfield Jamison

Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness Kay Redfield Jamison

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

i especially recommend an unquiet mind.

little of this and that

so maybe my birdgirl's a little "fond of the pasta" as my husband said. :D i'd like to imagine she's just snuggly. as if she were a pet, she would be the kind who would hop over to you and rub her head on you for a little love and maybe a treat or two and you wouldn't be able to refuse. no, i am not the former owner of that 26 pound cat on msn but not for lack of trying. hehe (ok, seriously, no emails, my cats are very healthy, no people food and only the occasional greenie for a treat for one. the other one doesn't care for treats.)

so last night i read i hate to see that evening sun go down by William Gay last night. it was very good. a bit on the darker side of life and some might even think it bleak. but those are probably the ones who like their books/movies to wrap up nice and neat in a happy little ending. it's definitely a keeper. i got it for a buck off the bargain table at the bookstore. oddly enough, i have found some of my absolute favorites on the bargain tables. i must be outside the mainstream fiction audience or something. if you're curious what other books i own click over on the link in the sidebar "books i have". it'll take you to librarything where i have most of my favorite books cataloged, fiction and non-fiction. there are some juicy art books listed there, too. have fun.

don't forget earth hour!

the books on my endtable

so here's the stack on my endtable. they can be interpreted in sort of an archaeological dig way - oldest on bottom, most recent on top. i edited out the various "fluff" magazines. they cover the period beginning from january 1st to now.

The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories by Nicholas Gurewitch - NSFW heck, even the "search more" on amazon isn't safe. but it is hilarious as hell.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian - unread, next on my list

The Last Song of Dusk: A Novel by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi - absolutely wonderful

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn - 2/3 read, thought-provoking but the way it has become sandwiched between two already-read books indicates to me it was dry enough that it won't get finished this go-around.

The Language of Light by Meg Waite Clayton - decent

oh, somewhere in there i read the first volume of an absolutely horrible but somehow compelling manga called apocalypse zero and a couple volumes of bizenghast. but we all know manga isn't real literature, right? ;)

yeah, so i won't ever be one of amazon's top reviewers. :)