what are you reading?

[keryx]

After I only half-answered this question the other day, I remembered a half-formed conjecture I have about people's reading habits. I'd like to 2/3 form that conjecture.

Of course, if I state the hypothesis before you answer, it meddles with your answer.

So. What are you reading?




I'll wait here while you think. Telling you I have some theory and then staring at you while you answer my question totally isn't observer interference.

Comments

[mermeydele.livejournal.com]

audrey niffenegger's her fearful symmetry.

[goodgothgirl.livejournal.com]

Oooooh! This was SO awesome!!!!! The last quarter of the book had me reading with my jaw on the floor in shock.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

At this particular moment? This LiveJournal entry.

Or did you mean books? In that case, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang and My Weeds by Sara Bonnett Stein.

[cyprinella]

Diane Duane's Young Wizards series and a book about freshwater shrimp species.

[gattabtribal.livejournal.com]

Currently: "What the dog saw" by Malcom Gladwell
Recently finished: "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell

Will be looking into buying The Tipping Point and Blink also by Gladwell.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

I read Outliers earlier this year and loved it. I need to read the others.

[gattabtribal.livejournal.com]

He is an excellent writer, and definately has a knack for writing in a way that "brings it home".

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Outliers yet, in part because it's a topic I already have some knowledge & a lot of bias about.

Of the others, I really recommend Tipping Point.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

my summary of outliers, at the time I read it: "Gladwell does a decent job of correlating success with the combination of ability and luck— the luck of culture, language, and time, combined with the opportunity to spend enough time to become very very good at a given task. What I find more intriguing, however, is Gladwell's extraordinary ability to profit from well-written but ultimately anecdotal essays."

A great writer, but not one with great science.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading Rebecca Walker's "Baby Love." Did not care for it.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

"The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro and some not-famous co-author dude.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Concurrently:
Guns, Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond
Strange Things Happen (Steward Copeland's memoirs)
The Kiss of the Spider Woman - Manuel Puig
The Living Great Lakes - Jerry Dennis
Just finished Paranoia by Joseph Finder

[we-are-pliable.livejournal.com]

Food of a Younger Land and Take the Cannoli (rereading).

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

Fire Study - the third of the Study series by Maria V. Snyder.
Waiting for me are:
Skinned by Robin Wasserman
Lit Riffs
Inked
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
The Espressologist
Odd and the Frost Giants
Lips Touch: Three Times
Nanny Returns

...probably only about half of those I will get to before they are due. And those are only library books.

If you're trying to do this at all scientifically, I am probably the wrong person to ask. *L*

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Ha! Actually, you so far most resemble my own answer to this question. I named books based on their physical location... here are the two I read in the bath, the one in my bag, the two in my car, the ones waiting on the shelf. And I forgot the ones next to the bed and on the breakfast table.

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

*L* That's the way I do it, too, though, occasionally, my books are in 2-3 places, because I will rent them from the library or buy them, and have them downloaded onto my laptop and/or work computer.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. I forgot the two I'm actively listening to, as well. I almost don't think of those as books, and certainly not as things I "read".

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Heh: I usually have a "reading in bed" book, a "reading at the dinner/breakfast table" book, a book I read in my email (via dailylit.com) and one I listen to as a book on CD in my car.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

I spent the week after finals reading nothing but Regency and Georgian trash romances; it doesn't really count as reading, though, as I merely use them for escape from my horrid migraine like some might watch TV. (Stephanie Laurens, Mary Balogh, and Georgette Heyer are my standbys but there was also some Kleypas and Carlyle in there... I think I read about 6 new-to-me and re-read another 10-15)

Books I'm actually reading now:

The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin
Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
The Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner

Recently read (in the last month):

Unpacking my Library edited by Jo Steffens (meta-book and architecture porn; the libraries and top-10 books of several architects)
Silence on the Wire by Michal Zalewski
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler, Prof. Cass R. Sunstein (re-read for a final project)
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant

Bought last night, and not yet started:

This is your brain on music by daniel levitin
the age of the unthinkable by joshua ramo
beyond 9 to 5 by sarah norgate

(Um, yeah, I mostly stick to non-fiction.)

[goodgothgirl.livejournal.com]

If you enjoy Regency romance fluff, I HIGHLY recommend all of Lauren Willig's books! She reminds me a bit of Georgette Heyer, in that she's spot-on with research, but she's not as formal/precise with the language. Her plots are fantastic, as well as the characters. And thankfully, she fades out on the sex scenes (my big complaint about Stephanie Laurens is all the sex). If you want to check her out, her website is www.laurenwillig.com.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I confess I've gotten pretty good at skipping over the turgid sex over the decades. (My best friend and I would steal her grandmother's books and read and return them before she noticed them missing.) Otherwise, Laurens does a pretty good job. I will check out Willig ;-)

[goodgothgirl.livejournal.com]

Currently, I'm reading LJ. :)

In book world, I'm reading a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer (the grande dame of the genre) and a trashy vampire/mystery novel.

[baheru.livejournal.com]

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.
Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett.
The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim.
Five-Minute Iliad, by...um. I cannot recall.

Those are the books that I'm sort of picking up and reading through again if I find myself with spare time while I am within arm's reach of them.

Over the holiday, I finished Children of Men, by P.D. James. I read Dust of Dreams, by Steven Erikson, which is the penultimate volume of his series that is ruining me for all other fantasy fiction.

My ongoing mission, though, is to excavate my way through Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

An article in Oxford American magazine by Maud Casey about having writers for parents. Also Titus Groan but that's going slowly.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

hunh, Maud is head of the creative writing program at UMD. Also, good glasses. linkey?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Sadly the article is in the actual paper magazine and not on their site. It is from the next to last issue. I already had a request to loan it out!