Monday, October 12, 2009

Getting back on track.

There has been so much business and illness in this house in the last month!  Traveling, teaching, working, a spouse with a terrible chest cold, being pretty sick myself and then a kid with the flu.  I feel a little like an entire month of my life has been stolen from me.  

But it will all work out in the end, always does.  I have a lot of catching up to do and hope to continue getting well so that I can tackle it faster than my current pace of slogging along with a box of Kleenex and bag of Halls.  

I have writing to do (As always, that is never really 'caught up'), housework to catch up on, church stuff that's been left undone, friends to call, plans to make and have just compiled a short list of books to read.  As crazy as it sounds, I'm a little sick of fiction for just a bit.  It happens every once in a while.  To write a fiction story there must be drama and I do eventually get sick of the drama, the bad decisions, the traumatic back stories and the angst.  Unfortunately there aren't a million David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell and Sloane Crosley books out there so I must look elsewhere.  

Once, in a time of fiction fatigue just like now, I went to the store and stumbled on a book that I loved called Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside by Katrina Firlik.   It was exactly what I needed at the time and I read all of the gory details with a smile on my face.  The list that I have compiled right now is not medically themed, but social justice.  I don't know if I'll be able to read through the list but I'll have it for whenever I want to go back to it.  Just like I have another medical book about cadavers that I have kept in the back of my head for awhile in case I do decide to get medical.

Here is my little list, let me know what you think.  Or better yet, let me know what is on your non-fiction reading list!

1 comment:

  1. You've read "Mountains Beyond Mountains", I'm guessing. If not, it's near the top on my nonfiction list. Also feel like I look at the world differently after reading "Three Cups of Tea". My book club read, "Enrique's Journey" and it was fascinating - the story of illegal immigrants who ride trains across the border. Finally, (and then I'll stop) I highly recommend, "There is No Me Without You." It's the story of adoption in Ethiopia and a history of the AIDS crisis and its roots.

    I like your list... haven't read any of them. Thanks!

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