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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 6th, 2016 08:36 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price, which I imagine I might have liked more if I read it as a kid. As it was it all felt a bit too goofy to me: the first story involves Homer defeating four burglars with a skunk, for instance.
I also finished Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds, which was moderately interesting but mostly reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species for ages now. My reading challenge for August is “a book you should have read in school,” and Darwin counts for that, right?
Actually I’m not sure anyone reads Darwin in school. Oh well, I think it’s a good idea, and I shall pencil it into my reading calendar for August.
What I’m Reading Now
Mike Dash’s Tulipomania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused, which is about the tulip bulb financial bubble in 17th century Holland. I guess I have sort of a thing for tales of financial bubbles. So far this one isn’t blowing me away like Zac Bissonnette’s The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, but then we’re still discussing the history of tulips and haven’t even gotten to Holland yet.
I’ve also started Irvin Yalom’s Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, which I think may take me a while, given that it’s so full of death and everything. Yalom kicks it off with the disconcerting fact that most therapists are not trained to deal with anxiety about death, like, at all, which seems like a pretty big oversight in therapy training, frankly. Surely it’s not uncommon for patients to fling themselves on the therapy couch and say “Doc, the fact that I will one day cease to exist fills me with an overwhelming terror.”
What I Plan to Read Next
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evelyn_b picked Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist as my book for the next challenge on the 2016 Reading Challenge, so I’m waiting for the library to bring that to me through the magic of interlibrary loan.
I’ve also been poking around the library’s disconcerting range of Darwin editions. I’m leaning toward David Quammen’s illustrated edition, because 1) pictures, and 2) after more hunting than I feel should be necessary, I’ve ascertained that it contains the unabridged text of the first edition, which is apparently clearer and more elegant than subsequent editions, which Darwin tried to emend to meet his critics’ objections.
Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price, which I imagine I might have liked more if I read it as a kid. As it was it all felt a bit too goofy to me: the first story involves Homer defeating four burglars with a skunk, for instance.
I also finished Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds, which was moderately interesting but mostly reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species for ages now. My reading challenge for August is “a book you should have read in school,” and Darwin counts for that, right?
Actually I’m not sure anyone reads Darwin in school. Oh well, I think it’s a good idea, and I shall pencil it into my reading calendar for August.
What I’m Reading Now
Mike Dash’s Tulipomania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused, which is about the tulip bulb financial bubble in 17th century Holland. I guess I have sort of a thing for tales of financial bubbles. So far this one isn’t blowing me away like Zac Bissonnette’s The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, but then we’re still discussing the history of tulips and haven’t even gotten to Holland yet.
I’ve also started Irvin Yalom’s Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, which I think may take me a while, given that it’s so full of death and everything. Yalom kicks it off with the disconcerting fact that most therapists are not trained to deal with anxiety about death, like, at all, which seems like a pretty big oversight in therapy training, frankly. Surely it’s not uncommon for patients to fling themselves on the therapy couch and say “Doc, the fact that I will one day cease to exist fills me with an overwhelming terror.”
What I Plan to Read Next
evelyn_b picked Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist as my book for the next challenge on the 2016 Reading Challenge, so I’m waiting for the library to bring that to me through the magic of interlibrary loan. I’ve also been poking around the library’s disconcerting range of Darwin editions. I’m leaning toward David Quammen’s illustrated edition, because 1) pictures, and 2) after more hunting than I feel should be necessary, I’ve ascertained that it contains the unabridged text of the first edition, which is apparently clearer and more elegant than subsequent editions, which Darwin tried to emend to meet his critics’ objections.
