touching the letters

Reading is a central focus of my academic, professional, and personal life: periods in my life are thematically centered around formative or significant works moreso than almost any other defining factor. As such, I like to imagine myself as a discriminating, insightful, and careful reader. However, since beginning graduate school, my opportunities for pleasurable, self-motivated reading have becoming considerably less frequent. Here, though, I post whatever I happen to be reading, a link to the title on amazon, the author’s name, and the date of completion.

As should be clear, my reading habits tend to be centralized around one specific theme or over-arching idea; as a result, I will often ‘cluster’ a number of works and reading selectively from each one. I only count books as ‘read’ if I have, in fact, read them from cover-to-cover. At any given time, upwards of a dozen books may be occupying attention, but I’ll usually speed through one or two at a time while slowly working through others.

Books I am Currently Reading:

1. Drood – D. Simmons
2. The Year of the Flood – M. Atwood
3. Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health – G. Taubes
4. The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
5. The Concise History of the Catholic Church - T. Bokenkotter
6. A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - K. Armstrong
7. Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories - P.G. Wodehouse
8. Why Do Catholics Do That? – K. O. Johnson

Books Read (1 January 2010 – 31 December 2010):

1. The Monster of Florence – M. Spezi & D. Preston (12/31/09)

Books Read (1 August 2009 – 31 December 2009):

1. The Way of the Peaceful Warrior – D. Millman (11/20/09)
2. Christianity: A Very Short Introduction – L. Woodhead (10/10/09)
3. The Meaning of Night – M. Cox (10/1/09)
4. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto – M. Pollan (8/26/09)
5. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite - D. Kessler (8/21/09)
6. The Spiral Staircase - K. Armstrong (8/14/09)
7. Through the Narrow Gate - K. Armstrong (8/1/09)
8. The Four Loves – C.S. Lewis (8/1/09)