Tag Archives: Donna Tartt

What Are You Reading?

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Although not as exciting as lurking outside your windows and occasionally peeking in to see what you’re reading, it’s easier to just put the question to you in blog form. So here goes: What are you reading these days? Fiction, non-fiction, biography, memoir, comics, tech manuals, graffiti, tea leaves?

While you think about it, here’s what I’m reading at the moment: This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time, Canada by Richard Ford, and last but not least, Putting Circles Into Squares For Dummies, by Advarious Starch. I imagine most of you also have a few books going at the same time. A different book for a different mood, right? Sometimes I’m dreaming about Canada and sometimes about setting wheels on fire.

Are you looking forward to any upcoming releases this fall? I am. Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Salinger by Shane Salerno and David Shields (in support of the Salinger documentary coming out next month, which also looks pretty enticing) and of course, Funk in the Trunk: A Mongoose Fingus Mystery, by Tiara Loo.

So then, pretend I’ve got my nose pressed up against the glass outside your reading room while you’re curled up in your favorite chair, lost in a good book. What titles would I see in there before you call the police?

What Are You Reading?

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Photo by George W. Ackerman

At the moment, I’ve got a couple of books going, Darrin Doyle’s The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I’m halfway through the former and just starting the latter, but I’d already recommend both. I’m also reading a friend’s manuscript pages (part of a “manuswap” with pages from Cam Hanson), and I just read two fascinating profiles in the July 11-18 New Yorker.  The first is about Jaron Lanier, a pioneer of virtual reality technology, who is critical of social networking, how it’s “dehumanizing and designed to encourage shallow interaction.” The second is about Sheryl Sandberg, who left Google to become Facebook’s COO and is a champion and mentor for women who want to advance into executive positions.  

So that’s me, what about you? What are you reading these days? And in what format? Are you old-school like me, reading actual tangible books and magazines, or have you embraced the future and get your news online, keep a storehouse of books on an e-reader?