What I’m reading

Here with a quick round-up of what’s on my “literal” and virtual bookshelves.

Books

• I’m halfway through, and really enjoying, this new novel by the author of The Good Thief.
• A fascinating historical look at the 1878 American Eclipse (Side note: Planning to view the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse? I interviewed the author, David Baron, about his travel tips for 5280.com.)
• Up next for me: This memoir (pictured above) about a woman’s struggle with toxic mold — “Julie Rehmeyer felt like she was going to the desert to die.”
• Cannot wait for Brené Brown’s upcoming book. It’s in pre-sale now!
• Also excited for Anne Bogel’s (of Modern Mrs Darcy) new book on seeing the world through the lens of personality. Also currently in pre-sale.

Online

• Elizabeth Gilbert posted this on her Facebook page, and the bold line below really resonated with me:

What's happening in Virginia is appalling and repulsive. And it's not just happening in Virginia. It's happening all over our country. Racism is not new, and it isn't going away. The Alt-right and neo-nazi movement is getting stronger, in this current permissive political climate. Your silence — our silence — is nothing but fertilizer for that dark old hatred. Not sure what you can do to help? There are no perfect solutions, but the list below offers a good place to start. It is better to do something awkwardly and nervously than to do nothing at all. [Here's the link with the list she provided.]

• If everyone ate beans instead of beef.
• Freelancers deserve praise too.
• More eclipse reading. (This one’s a classic from Annie Dillard, and if you want it in print, it’s a part of this 2016 collection.)

What have you been reading lately?

More books, more reading

I've not done a ton of book coverage on this here blog, but I don't really know why (I think about it often).

Reading is the most pleasurable and time-consuming hobby I have and, unless I'm talking about my pups, you're most likely to find me discussing books with friends and acquaintances (and even strangers!), and recommending titles.

I believe that the act of reading can deeply impact us. Whether reading for entertainment, escape, or education, it opens us to new worlds, and to perspectives different from our own.

It allows us as readers to challenge our biases and foster empathy — even when we're not expecting it.

I just finished audio-reading JoJo Moyes' Me Before You, and I will tell you — without any details so I don't spoil it — I had expected an escapist novel. It was so much more. (A really beautiful book, by the way. I highly recommend it.)

All this to say, I'm going to change the lack of books here. I want to share more of my reading world. Watch for more regular posts on recent reads, oldies but goodies, awesome audios, library love, and book news — I might even toss in an author interview every now and again.

Join me? (And let me know what you're reading down below in the comments!)

My life, in books

For the past few weeks, I've been digging into friends' annual reports about their favorite books of 2016. And, of course, adding even more titles to my to-read list — which currently sits at 766.

For reference, at the rate I'm currently pacing, I would need approximately 10 years to read just those. On one hand, that feels daunting and frustrating. On the other hand, I know I won't read them all, and I'm OK with that because the list is much more than just a reminder of what I'll never get to. For almost 10 years now I've been tracking my reading through Goodreads. What I love about Goodreads is not only the ability to easily refer back to what I have read, keep that list of what I want to read (or think I want to read), and learn what my friends are choosing to spend their time with these days, but also to have the opportunity to review the years and see patterns in my reading choices and habits.

• Why did I go through a few months in 2014 of wanting to read (but not actually reading) every single book about moss I could? (Oh right! Elizabeth Gilbert inspired this through The Signature of All Things: A Novel ... and I was training to hike Pikes Peak that same summer, and began seeking out books about the flora and fauna around me as a way to connect more with the trails...)

I've never been a very good journaler. I envy those who can sit down every day or once a week, or with some sort of regularity, and put pen to paper about their days. I've tried numerous times to settle into this type of routine: from plain old self-motivation, to gratitude journals, to formalized Morning Pages. In the end, every time I've come to feel it was a forced process for me, and given up.

What I've realized about Goodreads: For me, it's so much more than a book tracking, rating and reviewing system.

It's a way of journaling through books.

One thousand, four hundred and eighteen titles. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty (ish) days.

Goals and aspirations. Travel near and travel far. Major depressive cycles. Obsessions and compulsions. Dreams and desires. Relationship ups and downs. Professional highs. Professional lows. Passions and practices.

It's all there.

The words of my life.

How are you tracking yours?

Burnt popcorn and bad days

I'm having a day.

Actually, I'm having a week. Maybe a month.

Maybe more.

I'm having the kind of day that feels like your kitchen smells when you accidentally burn popcorn in the microwave. Like really burn it. Like when the bag is actually black and smoking and you're effing up a storm while tossing it all in the trash. And then you realize if you don't actually throw it into the trash outside, it's going to continue to stink up your house for days. (And on top of that, it was your last bag of popcorn.)

I'm having that kind of day.

It started — at least this latest variation of "day" — when I watched this social experiment video yesterday morning. (Go ahead. Watch it. It's just 3 minutes. I'll wait here.)

The CliffsNotes version: A bunch of individuals were asked to rate their success on a scale of 1 to 10 and talk about how they feel about themselves. Then friends and family members of those individuals were also asked to rate their particular loved ones' success. (If you didn't watch, I bet you can guess how this went.)

What I want to know is how would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10?

Because even though many of us could guess how this experiment would go just from watching the first few seconds, just from hearing the gist of it, I think many of us still would rate ourselves lower than we should. Lower than we are. And lower than the people closest to us would rate us.

Oh, how I would love to feel like a 10 in my life. Or a 9.75. Or even an 8 most days.

But the truth is, it takes work to feel like I'm at the top of the scale. And on some days, like today, getting to 5 feels hard. And when getting to 5 feels hard, everything feels hard. Getting work done feels hard. Running errands feels hard. Heck, getting out of bed feels hard.

I have no easy answers for you, or for me. But I do know that my self-talk plays a major role in my day-to-day. The good days, and the not-so-good days. And I also know that a positive word from a friend can help shift stuff. It would be kind of awesome if we could all go through the type of experience those in the video did. Not really practical, but awesome.

Yesterday, in the midst of my messy mind stuff, I sent a friend who's also having a rough time right now a quick text image (credit for the quote/art, FYI, is unknown, so apologies to the originator).

It said this:

It's not a rating. But it's kind of like a rating. Because I meant it in the "you're so awesome I would give you a 10 every day if I could" way.

And on top of that, it made me laugh. And laughter, they say (whoever they are), is the best medicine. Tears help clean out an exhausted and depressed system. Laughter helps fill it back up with joy.

So for any of you out there having a day like I'm having a day, this image above is also for you. And for me. And for anyone who just happened to burn their popcorn today.

High-fives, awesomeness and 10s all around. May tomorrow be a better day.

(P.S. I have not read You Are a Badass, by Jen Sincero, as shown in the photo I took while in an airport bookstore recently, but I think perhaps I might.)

What's LeVar Burton reading these days? I've got the scoop

As a fan, I'm thrilled to learn that I share something in common with actor/author/director/producer/all-around-cool-guy LeVar Burton: We're both Neil Gaiman fans.

I know this because when I interviewed him for a story for the Colorado Springs Independent that ran in yesterday's issue — he'll be speaking in the Springs on April 27 — we not only talked about his acting (from Roots to Star Trek: The Next Generation), Reading Rainbow and how he became a literacy advocate, but we also talked about what we were both reading.

Top of his list? Gaiman's newest, Trigger Warning.

And it is a list he runs through. Because also, like me, he reads more than one title at a time.

"I picked up that habit from my mother," LeVar says. "I blame her."

So what else is he reading then?

"Wild Child, by T.C. Boyle. He and I are both being honored by the L.A. Times Book Awards this year, and so I want to make sure that I've boned up on T.C. When I meet him, I want to be able to talk T.C. Boyle with T.C. Boyle."

Also on the list: The Essential Martin Luther King Jr., and works by Octavia Butler (his favorite sci-fi author) and Joyce Carol Oates. He also says that science fiction is "the one that is my genre" and so The Year's Best Science Fiction, an anthology edited by Gardner Dozois, is something else he's always got going — for both the sci-fi and the short fiction elements.

"I like reading short fiction at night before I go to sleep," he explains. "In one or two nights I can get through a story, and sometimes, depending on their length, two in a night before I drop off to sleep.

"Short fiction for me is, like, wow. You've really got to be a master of the craft to write short fiction well because there are no wasted words. You really have to be relevant and concisely precise. In any genre."

If you've been following LeVar's career (and/or have kids), you'll know that he just published his first children's book in the fall, The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm. Between that and his Reading Rainbow work, I asked him if he could recommend any books for kids.

"There are two that I tend to recommend in terms of picture book, which is the literature that we promote ... on the show because we are all about reaching the entry-level reader. Turning that child into a reader for life. Encouraging them to make that decision, self-select if you will, as a reader for life," he says.

"One is Derek Munson’s Enemy Pie. It's a story about a young boy who has an enemy move into the neighborhood, and his father vows to help him resolve it by making enemy pie for the boy and it has a surprise twist ending. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it. ... And then I also love Mary Hoffman's Amazing Grace. I recommend that book liberally. It's about a young girl Grace who wants to play Peter Pan in her school play but she gets resistance from her classmates because she is neither a boy and she is black as well. And it is Grace's journey of awakening as to the power of her imagination, and why she is uniquely suited in the end to play the character of Peter Pan."

I don't know about you, but I've just added, oh, five or six books to my to-reads. Thanks LeVar!

(Note: Book links in this piece lead to an affiliate program, from which I may make a commission.)