Life of Wry

Right.  It’s June 4 and it’s raining like I don’t know what.. I’m out of unseasonal storm metaphors.  It seems there are more articles now about how these may be non trivial shifts in weather patterns due to honest to goodness climate change.  To wit, tornadoes and floods predicted for tomorrow here in Northern California.  This could be the way it is forever.

So there’s that.

I’m not entirely displeased.  I know summer will be here soon enough and am happy to call it yet another rain day… which means more fireplace and tea and reading… since our baseball tournament’s been canceled.

I’m sure there are a lot more people put out by this stuff than me right now.   Someone mentioned all the June outdoor weddings.  Poor newly weds to be.  Messed up beer fests, garage sales, pool parties… a small sampling of my Facebook stream this morning.  Bummers all around.

Anyway..  here’s my dilemma for the day: which book to hunker down with.  I’m in the middle of, and loving Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.  So, really, it’s not a dilemma at all.  But WHAT’S NEXT?   In the wings, reading from the top of the stack down:

Buddha’s Brain, the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom

The Catcher in the Rye (because I had a hankering to read it again)

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong (founder of the Charter on Compassion movement)

Escape from Kathmandu by local author Kim Stanley Robinson

Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Oblivion by David Foster Wallace

Logicomix, the epic search for truth

Look me in the Eye, my life with asperger’s

Cowboys are my Weakness (re-read because I love Pam Houston)

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

All I did was Ask, a compilation of interviews with Terry Gross

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

Sister Noon by local author Karen Joy Fowler

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

In Praise of Slowness (do you love that title?)

The White Lioness by Henning Mankell, swedish crime writer!

Traveling Mercies, some thoughts on faith, by Anne Lamott

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (probably one of my favorite movies ever)

The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

Smile When You’re Lying, confessions of a rogue travel writer

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (saw him at a book reading.. wonderful!)

Train by Pete Dexter (have started this multiple times)

A journal of American Short Fiction

So Much for That (in middle of it, loving it.. but forgot I was reading it)

Bridges of Sighs by Richard Russo

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky (awesome guy I heard speak a couple years ago)

World Without End by Ken Follett

The Ominvore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (an African childhood)

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron

The Audacity of Hope by, you know the guy

Okay, that was the living room stack, the bedroom stack AND the office stack.  I didn’t go to the shelves because I’m too overwhelmed with unread things I can’t wait to read.  So.. my dilemma is going to be:  which one next?