Reading update

As a librarian, I should probably read way more than I do. That said, 2006 has seen me on a pretty good reading streak.

Finished:
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami. So far my favorite book I've read this year. I'm trying not to blow my wad on Murakami books, so I'm spacing out my pace.

Envy, Kathryn Harrison. Listed as one of the top 100 books last year by I think the NYT. It was just eh. Seemed to have too many storylines, none of which I was all that interested in, and none of which got resolved to a satisfactory degree.

The Sluts, David Cooper. I need to read more Cooper. Very fast read, all done in message board and email format, about snuff film fetishists in the gay LA scene.


In Progress:
Crash, JG Ballard. I just started this after seeing the Cronenberg film. Its very industrial so far, and set in an entirely different country than the film, and starts with a death at the beginning of a major character as compared to the movie waiting for that until the end. I love comparing books to their movie counterparts.



Books I'm having trouble getting through:
Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides. I'm about 70 pages into it, and I'm just really bored. I'm trying to stick with it because its supposedly great.

Revolting Librarians Redux: Radical Librarians Speak Out, Jessymn West and Katia Roberto. I am stuck with libraries all day, the last thing I want to think about outside of work is more work.

And You Shall Know Our Velocity, Dave Eggers. I have no problem with the book, but because I own it it always comes last on the priority list. I have to get through my library books first.

Nonfiction I'm in the process of slowly reading:
The Floride Deception, Christopher Bryson. About how lobbying and the dental industry got floride into our water in the 70s. I read a few pages at work when I'm bored.

The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Richard Heinberg. Semi-apocalyptic view of how soon our oil supplies will run out, and what will happen once it does. Gives me nightmares.

A question of torture : CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, Alfred W. McCoy. My old Vietnam Wars professor from Wisconsin. I'm very excited to get further into this, I'm only on the first chapter and already I'm horrified.

Unseen genders : beyond the binaries, editd by Felicity Haynes and Tarquam McKenna. My attempt to brush up on some gender studies stuff before returning to school for my women's studies masters (if I go). Haven't had to read Judith Butler in awhile, so I figured I should remember how much I hate her style.

Books I gave up on:
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion. I had heard so many great things about this book, and I just couldn't finish it. Too much psychiatriac discussion of the grieving process. I think I just wanted to read a super depressing book, and this was more self-helpy than depressing. boo.