My reading. Let me show you it.

Published by Helen | Filed under Books, Faith, Memery

The funny thing about being tagged in a “what are you reading” meme (as I was by Jamie Notter) is that I do much of my reading through audiobooks, so the book I’m currently reading doesn’t have a page number, although I could dig up the physical copy of the book if I looked around enough, that’s not true of most audiobooks I “read.” See, I have a long commute, and what makes it bearable is Fairfax County library’s extensive collection of CD audiobooks. Granted, I am an NPR fangirl (we’ve dug up the evidence from the 2004 archives and will migrate it here soon), but I love being read to.

Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s the result of getting burnt out on reading as a result of doing my senior thesis at Temple U. in 2004 on Virginia Woolf. Other times I know it’s a matter of the fact that I do more reading of online content than media-with-turnable-pages these days. And other times still it’s because the kinds of books I most like to read are hipster slipstream novels that libraries tend to avoid carrying, much less on audiobook.

Right now I’m rereading the Harry Potter series via audiobook, though. Jim Dale is a gifted storyteller, and I must admit I love the series more with each reading, and audio is adding a dimension to the books that’s helping me override the visuals imposed by the movies. I love nerding out on certain editing gaffes that happened because the books were rushed to print, and I love how the series was held up by fundamentalist Christians as antiGod when its good vs. evil rivals the Narnia series in terms of Christian allegory. I’m on Book IV (Goblet of Fire) and intend to listen to the entire series

For work right now I’m reading Wikis for Dummies because I’m planning to build some documentation for our workplace environment that I believe Wikis will facilitate, and Meatball Sundae a little bit although I find reading many of these books is like reading a digest of blogs I read six months ago, and I often wind up thinking to myself “dood, why didn’t i think to propose this book?”
I love Dummies books in particular because I can flip through the pieces I already know but always discover things I don’t know.

On the faith front, I’m not reading anything per se other than a devotional book one of my EfM colleagues passed along last week, and my second year EfM textbook. Have too many faith-related feeds I monitor for the Episcopal Cafe to be able to pick up a book. I have “read” several audio
books on the Reformation and Renaissance recently.

I used to be a bookstore manager and it’s a secret dream of mine to own my own book/coffee shop, with my own mixes spinning on the muzak and a bookstore cat winding about my ankles as I’m shelving. I love used-bookshops, too, and the evidence is mostly in storage at the Annandale house. I love reading kids books, too; I’m too saddled with Disney versions of children’s stories and being a touch of a folklorist with a couple of YA novels in my head, studying up on the real Mary Poppins and the real Peter Pan has been helping me cultivate and discern my own storytelling voice for the post-millennial generation to come–my grandchildren.

So I think there are five books in there somewhere. But I’d much rather be writing them.

Tagging? I’m still cultivating readers, but I think I need recommendations from the faith blogcircle right now, because I’ve been neglecting my gallycat readers since the migration. So I’m tagging:

Ann Fontaine

Nick Knisely

ePisco Sours

Kirstin Paisley

Progressive Pragmatist