Reading List

Since I joined Kim and Lu in their Possession read-along, I’ve been feeling somewhat overwhelmed with all the other books I want to be reading right now. Interestingly, Kim just posted her own list.

Here are the books on my immediate to-read list:

• Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions: I am in so love with the cover of this book, I want a signed poster of it to hang on my office wall. I couldn’t wait for the paper version to come out, so I bought it for my Nook and immediately read my friend Pam Helberg‘s brilliant piece, “Body Language.” I’m going to try to read the rest of it in order, but might skip ahead to Cami Ostman‘s “Direct Line to God” and Susan Tive‘s “Tilapia Mikveh.”

• Dora: A Headcase: After Tele loaned me Chronology of Water, I was eager to read Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel about mental illness, so I picked up the paper version of this book at Orca Books in December. Sad to say, I haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet, but it’s sitting on my writing desk along with
• In One Person: John Irving’s The World According to Garp is one of my favorite books, but I’ve fallen behind in reading his more recent works. My mom passed this one along to me in hardcover, no less, and
• The Crying Tree: My friend Jolene loaned this to me last night, again in hardcover. I need to read this before the Chuckanut Writers Conference, because author Naseem Rakha will be among the faculty. Fortunately, the conference isn’t until June, so I have some time.
• The New Hunger: I’m more than halfway through this e-novella. I read it when it’s easier to tote my Nook around than my copy of Possession. It’s the prequel to Warm Bodies, the novel on which the zombie rom-com (zom-rom-com?) is based.
• The Forgotten Garden: This is the April selection for my book club, from which I have been delinquent for an entire year. I only have the preview on my Nook, and my return to book club will be determined by whether I get around to reading the preview and liking it enough to buy the whole book.
• A Dog’s Purpose: This book has been on my Amazon wishlist for years. I put it there to research for my dog novel, long before I became a dog memoirist. Rob’s folks gave it to me for Christmas, so now it sits on my bedside table, waiting to be read.

As if I needed to add any more books to my list, the other day I came across mention of

• Bright as the Sun: Creative nonfiction about a dog rescued from dog-fighting, which is the subject of the novel that I backburnered while writing Bark and Lunge.

My long-term to-read list is much more extensive. Have a look at it on Good Reads.

In my next post, I’ll tell you why I’m so happy I decided to give Possession one more push.

(Did ya all notice how I named-dropped some of my awesome writer buddies and provided links to their sites?)