I completely picked up my mom's habit of library book selection. I like to read a lot, and I'm a super fast reader, so I go through way too many books for a bookstore to be economically possible. So I go to the library about once a week, and come home with a stackful of future knowledge. It's a good time.
I don't read fiction. There have just been way too many times that I tried to read fiction, then I get to the end and think "Why the fuck do I care about that?" I don't want to read about pretend people. I don't get emotionally connected, and I'm way too literal-minded to ever care about interpreting what the author was really trying to say or any of that crap. People have offered book suggestions for years with statements like "I know you don't read fiction, but really, you'll love this." So I try, and just get burned by stupid characters, or writers trying to be fancy and just come off as pretentious, or lame endings.
When I go to the library, I head straight for the "New Non-fiction" section. A lot of times, I talk about random things that no one should care about and the response I'll get is "Why would you know that?" New Non-Fiction, my friend. It is a goldmine of useless knowledge. Old non-fiction is also good, but it's just too overwhelming with the stacks and stacks and stacks of books (although I worked in libraries for a total of 5 years, so I have an excellent working knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System). I like the new non-fiction because it is a small section of completely random topics.
I'm not choosy. I will grab any and all books that look like they might be at all interesting.
Here's what's on my reading agenda for this week:
1. "The Year of Living Like Jesus: My journey of discovering what Jesus would really do"
( chose this mostly because there is a really smiley picture of a guy with a Grizzly Adams beard on the cover. He looks happy, so I'm going to guess his journey turned out well.)
2. "Cults, Conspiracies & Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, the Illuminati, Skull & Bones, Black Helicopters, the New World Order."
(You never know when you might run into a Bonesman)
3. "How to Be a Mentsh (& Not a Schmuck)"
No idea what this is about, but who could resist that title. Plus, it's by the author of "Born to Kvetch". Again, I haven't read that book, but want to based solely on the title.)
4. "French Women Don't Sleep Alone: Pleasurable Secrets to Finding Love"
Frankly, I'm kind of getting tired of being lectured about how much more awesome French women are than American women, and I'm not planning on looking for love any time soon but I like to be prepared.
5."Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English".
I really like books on language. I would so have majored in English if it weren't for all the classes making you read stupid fiction books.
6."The World has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body"
I am in the quest for the perfect body (it's not going well) so I'd like to hear how the rest of the world is handling their quest.
7."Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs: The World's most Puzzling Mysteries Solved"
I mostly got this because it says on the title that the Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre. What? I went to the Louvre, and those lying French bastards showed me a Mona Lisa! What the hell!
8."The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite".
I almost skipped this one over becuase I thought it was a diet book, and I've read all that stuff already. But this is about overeating as a society, instead of just in my own belly, so it might be interesting
9."Alien Hand Syndrome: And other too-weird-not-to-be-true stories"
A jackpot of useless knowledge, I'm sure.
10."Lizzie Borden Took an Axe, or Did She?"
I don't know, Annette M. Holba. Do you know something I don't?
11. "I Have Something to Tell You: A Memoir"
I read the book jacket on this one and they ruined the secret. She wants to tell me she has Aids. And everyone else. Apparently she kept it secret for a long time, then wrote a book to tell everyone. I like secrets, so it should be a good read.
12. "The Tyranny of E-Mail: The 4000 Year Journey to your Inbox."
I think this is about how email and the internet and stuff is bad. I don't agree, but I'm open to discussion on the matter.
13. "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict"
See? Being a Facebook addict is not the worst thing you could be.
14. "It's not all Flowers and Sausages: My adventures in second grade"
It's from a 2nd grade teacher. I liked 2nd grade, so maybe I'll like reading about other people's 2nd grades?
So anyway, in the next week or so, feel free to ask me about living like Jesus, freemasons,jewish characters, French women who sleep around a lot, the dark side of the English language, images of physical perfection, where the hell the Mona Lisa is, why Americans are fat, too-weird-not-to-be-true stories, theories on Miss Borden, keeping your AIDS a secret, how evil technology is, how to get addicted to abortions, or 2nd grade. .
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I tried to comment last night - but they didn't accept me. I just wanted to say - I'm looking forward to hearing the final truth about Lizzie.
ReplyDeleteI read the Lizzie book last night. It was really badly written, and college professor-y. It was really more of a look at the reactions to the trial, and how the trial went went and blah blah blah. The author didn't really make any sort of meaningful conclusions. I still totally think she took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks.
ReplyDeleteI also read the one about the 2nd grade teacher. It pretty much confirmed to me that many teachers are big-time whiners and like to gossip about each other (not all teachers, but lots.) That's all the author did was complain and bad-mouth over, inferior (to her) teachers.
And I read the abortion addiction one. That lady was just crazy, pretty much.
Looking forward to full reports on these titles. Well, at least a good summary. They sound interesting but considering I struggle to finish my Book Club books I should probably not distract myself this month.
ReplyDelete"Alien Hand Syndrome" rocks. There are a bunch of 3-4 page long stories about weird things in history. Lots of factoids. For example, the Allied Forces were able to take Sicily from the Germans by planting a dead body posing as a British officer with misinformation planted on him about where the Allies were going to invade. The Germans went there, while the Allies snuck up the other side. They captured Sicily, one thing leads to another, and we win. Yay.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there was an interesting story about how when radium (the glowy radioactive stuff) was first discovered, they used it to paint watches so they'd be glow in the dark. And the ladies who painted the watches with the radium were told to use their mouths to keep their brushes pointy. They were pretty much sucking radium. (Yeah, they died)
I also read the End of OVereating book. It talked about how we aren't bad for craving bad food. It's in our instincts to want to stock up on fat and sugar if we have access to it. It's in the DNA. But the problem with the US is that we always have access to it. So it gave some tips on how to change habits. It gave good advice when it was talking about how anorexics are trained to think "It's not me that doesn't want to it, it's my eating disorder" and the book suggested the same thing for overeaters. Good idea.