remember how i told you about my reading out in the corners? well, it's about to get a whole lot more public. i've made a reading out in the corners reading list and a cute poster for a display at my beloved local library. we're going to share my diverse reading list with the other library users. it will hopefully inspire and also inform about what a great service the library has for bringing pretty much any book you might want nearly home to your front door.
i generally read in english if i can - it's much faster for me that way and i'm more able to get things read in time to return the books. on the list we're making available at the library, the books that are available in danish are listed with their danish title, tho' part of the point of this is to show people how very much there is available in english! very nearly anything you want. they go to great lengths to get a book for you if it's possible - "my" copy of the humument actually was borrowed from a german library and sent "home" to my local library for me. i think that's awesome. it's a great service and one of the few things in this country (and probably even the world) that's still free.
i really enjoyed making the poster and finally used some of my hoarded pretty papers and ephemera. it feels like they were at last put to good use. i chose books that had recently been on my bedside table, as well as a few old favorites and the list is by no means exhaustive. here it is, including capital letters, no less:
The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
by Ray Oldenburg
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)
The Passport
by Saul Steinberg
Joseph Anton: A Memoir
by Salman Rushdie
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
Wildwood: A Journey through Trees
by Roger Deakin
Hornet Flight
by Ken Follett
A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel
by Tom Phillips
The Republic of Wine
by Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt (translator)
Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism
by Slavoj Žižek
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with Art
by Yayoi Kusama
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator)
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
The Bean Trees; Animal Dreams ; Pigs In Heaven
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Kreutzer Sonata
by Leo Tolstoy
Notes from Underground
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Tartine Bread
by Chad Robertson, Eric Wolfinger (Photographer)
Ukrudt - en kogebog med nordiske urter
by Rasmus Leck Fischer, Katja Dahlberg
* * *
11 comments:
okay, so you're stuck on a deserted island with only one book ... which book is it? (and iBook doesn't count)
that's interesting question, bill. and i think it's one that has never remained static for me. my gut reaction is that i'd want all 7 books of the harry potter books with me. but that's just right now, in this moment. it could be completely different tomorrow.
Better quickly decide. Your rowboat is sinking and your arms are full of clothes, shoes, cameras, rhubarbs and gin bottles... You have one free hand to grab a book as you abandon the dingy and begin wading towards the sole coconut tree...
So, this is where I hang my head in shame and admit that the last book I read was *gasp* Eat Pray Love. And, this was even though I had perfectly good books by Murakami, Camus and lord knows who else lying around there just waiting for me to pick them up and devour them. At least it wasn't a real book, it was digital.....I think it was a bit like when I read the Da Vinci Code just to see what the fuss was all about and was left wondering what the fuss was all about.
This is an EXCELLENT list. Several favourites of mine are on it.It is very cool that you're trying to inspire others to be more diverse in what the read. Very cool indeed.
@bill - i think i would take john seymour's guide to self-sufficiency. if i was going to be stranded on a desert island, it might come in hand.
@spillingink - i read that too and loved it, except for the india bit - that didn't thrill me.
@lisa-marie - i had a lot of fun making the poster, so i hope people do get inspired to try something new.
Have you read Flight Behaviour by BK? I guess I could just go and check on your goodreads!
So far it was my read of 2013.
I've been keeping a list this year for the first time in ages and regretting those years when I didn't. There's something about a list ...
If I could only take one book with me it would be Little House in the Big Woods - self-sufficiency, comfort, nostalgia and I already know I can read it over and over again.
@molly - i haven't. how odd i didn't know she had a new book! my bad! i was just thinking of rereading The Laguna, since I've been reading about Moscow in the 20s and Trotsky figures heavily.
I loved the Little House books as a child, but found I wasn't as charmed by them when I tried to reread them a couple of years ago. Pa was strict and life was hard. Tho' I love that story of the maple syrup running in the big woods.
I couldn't get into the Lacuna at all. And I didn't particularly enjoy The Poisonwood Bible either. But Flight Behaviour is more in keeping with The Bean Tree, which I loved, and Prodigal Summer, another favourite of hers.
I'm reading the Little House series to Frieda, and seeing them through a child's eyes I'm falling in love all over again. But ja, I also get now why my mother was so freaked out by the fever 'n ague episode on the prairie!
I liked the lacuna, and agree with you about poisonwood bible, not one of my faves either. I've read those early ones multiple times, they're definite faves.
as a kid, a friend and I dressed up as Laura and Mary and played "little house" for hours on end.
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