Obsessive Compulsive Reading Habits…

Unlike me, she clearly hasn’t read these books:

Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner
The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein
The Bomb by Theodore Taylor [Although this is fiction, it's based on true events.]
Let’s not forget this documentary on the Bikini Islands: Radio Bikini

Also, there’s a reason there’s such a thing as sunscreen. Or has she not actually seen Rep. Boehner? Let’s just say that I’d bet on him having skin cancer soon.

My attention span has been squashed into oblivion and shoved into the number infinity. It’s almost like I need to force feed wood pulp and dry ink into my eyes. It’s a waste of time to play videogames and to watch movies in my opinion. (And yes, I have seen movies and played videogames in the last week or so.) The pressure to read had been slapped into my brain at birth. It’s too late to go back. The only other media that agrees with me are documentaries.

A few days ago, I did get into reading the Mary Russell  series by Laurie R. King. My mom loaned them to me. Shame on me, delving into fiction. However, they are clearly the first Murder Mysteries I’ve swallowed whole since I was into Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon. Hopefully I’ll finish the series soon and run away from the gruesome lies that lay in fiction.

The books I feel are worth reading:
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Lost City of Z by David Grann

The books that I’m breaking down to read, even though I don’t particularly want to reading them:
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The books I bought because I need a break from non-fiction:
The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice
Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice
The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice

It’s nice knowing that life is real and there’s better shit going on than what’s happening to me. Yeah, great. I just need a nice soothing novel so that I don’t go bonkers from reading The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. Egads Egan!

Getting ready to move into my parents house. Having to slick up the condo to sell before we leave. My sleep hygiene is beginning to look healthy. I actually woke up at 5am this morning, instead of going to sleep at 5am…

I’m still reading through The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. These slow reading times will pass. Usually I go a long while without reading, then I read 5 books in a row. It’s always been that way for me.

I read books 5, 6, and 7. I stayed up all night for each book, and it wrecked my sleeping routine. Then I watched the new Harry Potter movie in theaters. There’s nothing more annoying than when movies don’t tell a stories properly. This is why I don’t like watching movies! In all honestly, that’s why I stick with books.

Otherwise I’m reading The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Taking a break from The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan because it’s a depressing subject… In fact, all the books I have in this room is depressing! Here’s their titles:

1. Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
2. The Working Poor by David K. Shipler
3.  Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte
4.  The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
5. Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig
6. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young
7. Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant
8. A Rip in Heaven: A memoir of a Murder and its Aftermath by Jeanine Cummins
9.  Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land by Patrick French
10. Electroboy by Andy Behrman
11. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf
12. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman
13. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
14. Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent by Mary Laven
15. China, Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World by Ted C. Fishman
16. The Pirate Wars by Peter Earle
17.  We Are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change by Tim Flannery
18. 50 Facts That Should Change the USA by Stephen Fender
19. Holy Cow: And Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald
20. Indian Givers: How Native Americans Transformed the World by Jack Weatherford
21. Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman
22. Character Studies: Encounters with the Curiously Obsessed by Mark Singer
23. The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester
24.  The Seashell on the Mountaintop by Alan Cutler
25. You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe by Christopher Potter
26. 100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know by John D. Barrow
25. Potato: How the Humble Spd Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman
26. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis
27. Happiness: Lessons From A New Science by Richard Layard
28. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
29. Earth by Jon Stewart
30. Voluntary Madness: Lost and Found in the Mental Healthcare System by Norah Vincent
I admit some of them are cheerful. The obvious one is the book named, “Happiness.” But you have to admit, most all of them are rather depressing subjects. However, I don’t regret buying them since I’ve lived with my mother in-law. They all look interesting…

I’m still waiting for the end of this month for my life to begin, or end as we know it. Which ever will my mind choose, a positive or negative attitude? Well, I guarantee, the book, “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin didn’t help me in that area.  Her idea was to make her life happier by changing herself rather than her environment. At the end of the month, my environment is going to be completely changed. The United States economic woes caught up with me and my husband. We’re off to live with my parents until my husband can find a job. Huzzah…

On another note, I’ve sinned. Forgive me books, I’ve watched TV.

In the “Great Plains,” Americans killed all the Indians and the Bison, then they uprooted all the grass in order to plant wheat (or what ever) in a place without enough rainfall. Then the depression hit, and people abandoned their acreage (since no money was coming in) without anything planted on it and crappy weather came storming through, creating the dust bowl.

You have to admit, there’s some profound stupidity mixed in there. I haven’t gotten to the part in The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan on how horrible the dust bowl was. But that sums the book up so far.

The title says it all, here are the books I got:

1. Character Studies by Mark Singer
2. Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman
3. The Seashell on the Mountaintop by Alan Cutler
4. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young

Yesterday was a really busy day, and today is about the slowest day imaginable. The most I’m going to do is read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. When I phoned my mom yesterday and updated her on what I was reading, she said that my Great Aunt Bertie was in the dust bowl.

Me: Really?
Mom: Yeah, she would NOT talk about it.
Me: Huh.
Dad: Who?
Mom: Aunt Bertie, she was in the dust bowl.
Dad: Oh yeah, huh.
Me: You know that there was so much static electricity in the air, that if you shook someone’s hand, you’d be knocked back?
Mom: Isn’t that weird?
Me: Did you know that?
Mom: No, but isn’t that weird?

I have a strict rule about not reading a book twice. The only series I read over and over however, is Harry Potter. It’s my comfort when it’s raining and storming. Or snowing, or when I simply get tired of reading. I end up reading Harry Potter because my brain doesn’t work when my eyes aren’t staring at words.

I know, weird.

I had a conversation with one of my pals on AIM and he asked, “When are you going to write reviews?”

I don’t know, maybe never. I think this blog should be more about how ridiculous my mind has gotten since I’ve started reading non-fiction 24/7. Conversations I’ve had since reading fact after fact, after fact. What I’ve learned, how I apply it.