July Reading

I am in a great mood. In a couple of days, I open my Barnhill-Yorkshire blog for three days, a sentimental blog that I doubt anyone would want to read. I open it to the public the first three days each month.

Having gotten that out of the way, back to the important stuff. I am traveling and have lots and lots of time to read while standing in security lines, waiting in traffic jams, waiting in lines to buy tickets to events and museums, watching the grandchildren enjoy the various museums.

I generally read four (4) books concurrently: my A, B, C, and D books. I blogged about that in the blog I deleted some time ago. The "A" book being my primary book: a difficult classic, generally that has great redeeming value (Shakespeare, James Joyce, Harold Bloom, etc) and then working down to the "D" book. I just received Three Ways to Capsize a Boat and I can already tell it's going to be a great book, just from reading the back cover, the introduction and few pages of the first chapter. It looks to be so good I am afraid to start it, knowing that it can be finished in one sitting. A "D" book needs to be started, read, and finished in a very special time and place.

My "B" book is another biography of Anais Nin; more on that one later. I'm not sure what will become my "C" book. I just completed I am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby, and Forged in Faith by Rod Gragg. I am reading Roads to Quoz, by William Least Heat-Moon. Superficially it looks like a "B" book but the more one reads, the more it seems to morph into a thick "D" book. Heat-Moon burst onto the literary scene some years ago with Blue Highways and Quoz is his second book. I am interested in reading Blue Highways to give the author a fair reading, but I have mixed feelings about Quoz. I see that Quoz is not available through Amazon. Interesting.

I left two "A" books at home and I still need to finish them: one, a biography of William James, and the other, a review of Western culture since 1500 to the present, From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun.