Reading Etc.

Life events--Grandma’s hospitalization and the heat wave among the--have prevented regular posting this past week. I’m hoping that’s about to change. Meanwhile, since my online reading has also been limited, I’ve been reading books. You know, those square, solid things that you hold in your hand and turn the pages? Have also watched a number of videos.

Finished five books in the last week:

From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler--a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist explains his method for creating literary fiction. I hope to do a comprehensive review of this one soon as Butler’s advice may have a huge impact on my approach to my own writing going forward.

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky--my already jaundiced news-watching eye has gone a deeper shade of orange.

Destroying World Order: US Imperialism in the Middle East before and after September 11 by
Francis A. Boyle--a specialist in international law examines US foreign policy over the last half century.

Night by Elie Wiesel--moving memoir of surviving the Nazi concentration camps. I was especially struck by his story of the years leading up to actual incarceration in which his community and his family ignored the signs of the coming holocaust, even scoffed at those who tried to warn them and how easily they adapted as one by one their basic citizenship rights were taken from them until the day they docilely formed ranks in the streets in front of their homes and then marched into the cattle cars. Equally disturbing is the acquiescence of all those who watched from the sidelines.

Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip--an enchanting fantasy novel which was a welcome relieve from all the heavy stuff I’ve been reading in the last year. I think I need to treat myself to more of this just-for-fun reading. I’m forgetting my own Joyreader’s Manifesto.

Meanwhile, I’m pushing hard to get as far as I can in Kevin Phillip’s American Theocracy which has to go back to the library this Friday and which I will have to wait in queue for another three or more months for my next turn. I advanced my bookmark a hundred pages in one day yesterday.

Some of the videos I watched in the last week:

Because of Winn-Dixie--watched this with Grandma Saturday

Back When We Were Grownups--watched this with Grandma Sunday. Now I want to read the Anne Tyler novel it was based on.

Twisted--Watched this by myself Monday morning. It isn’t easy to surprise me anymore but this one did. It was a well put together psychological thriller that kept you guessing until the scene--even the protagonist herself was a suspect who wasn’t sure she wasn’t guilty.