This column should be called “What I’m Not Reading,” because my nightstand collection is best described as aspirational: mostly books I long to read. Books arrive, do not leave, and become semi-furniture. I live in an apartment, so my nightstand is also a filing cabinet. The first picture I took included my sleeping husband. He kindly rolled out of view.
As an editor I read many drafts of each novel I work on, so in my personal reading I’m drawn to short forms like essays, and things I don’t have to finish, but can dip in and out.
Actually did finish:
Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon (deeply interesting, and painful)
An Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age by Simon Schama (happily, this took forever – great book)
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron (delightful, and so short!)
At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch (fascinating)
My co-op’s monthly financial report (a shocker about taxes and fuel costs. not a sleep aid)
The New Yorker Collection of Doctor Cartoons
Read parts of:
The Essays of E.B. White
Message in a Bottle and Sign Posts in a Strange Land, both by Walker Percy
Best American Essays 1999
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar
A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin
Just started:
Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich (she’s brilliant, wonderfully cranky, and so right)
Aspire to:
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (what a title! and a gorgeous blue cover)
Then Again by Diane Keaton (will be fun over the holidays)
Last thing before I turn out the light:
I look at cartoons. On top is Roz Chast’s fabulous collection: The Party, After You Left.
