Hoosiers Ate My Brain

Reading Like Crazy

Like anybody really cares about these long lists of books, but you know, it's all feeding an inadequate sense of accomplishment lately. (I'm going to have a lot of adjustment to this whole "working for yourself" business. When you go to an office everyday you at least feel like you did *something* even though more often than not, you could easily slide by without doing a damn thing. Now at least I own up to the fact that I'm not getting a damn thing done and go get a latte instead.) That said, here's my list of what I have actually finished in the past two weeks.

* The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (should be required reading for all business people)
* The Teeth of the Tiger, Tom Clancy (terrible, Clancy just gets worse with each new book, sorely in need of an editor and a co-author, too much repetition, weak characters, lacking the robust technical details of his early novels, and poor plotting, read like the first half of what should have been a longer novel)
* Skinny Dip, Carl Hiassen (as expected, a fun summer beach read, love his S. Florida mysteries)
* The Trendmaster's Guide, Robyn Waters (fun book -- nothing earthshattering but good knowledge, she's the ex-buyer for Target)
* Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (always a good idea, listened to about half in unabridged audio and read the rest. Elizabeth Bennet remains an ageless character still modern for the 21st century.)
* The Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler (there's something just wrong about putting this one next to Jane Austen, pure unadulterated trash, poorly written, I'm guessing a hit inside the beltway and then even probably not so much)

Next up:
Emma Brown by Clare Boylan (the "finished" version of the unfinished manuscript left by Jane Austen on her death)

Although I have a mighty stack of unread fiction and non-fiction and may skip around, I just hit "send" on my latest Amazon order and that should yield some useful reading. Just ordered: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, Cloud Atlas: A Novel, by David Mitchell, Bone in the Throat by Anthony Bourdain (been wanting to read this forever to see if it was any good), and Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by friend and former author Cory Doctorow.

posted by braingirl @ 8:41 AM