What delights me is this: sitting on my bed with a cup of coffee in a yellow cup, planning what I'll read next, what book, what collection of essays, what poetry, what to download and what to hold in hand. I'm finishing Updike's Couples, have devoured its smutty pages even while walking. The story has made me feel lonely in the best way. I've got Lily King's Euphoria next -- she was a college classmate of mine, an old friend with whom I've lost touch, but I love her novels. Helen Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird sits beside my bed, the cover green with a snake and a pink rose. I've read a few of the chapters but will start over because I was distracted by the same loneliness with which Updike seduced me. I read an interview with Oyeyemi this morning (my yellow cup at my mouth), and she spoke of Maggie Nelson's Bluets, a book about the love of blue. I read a bit of that, know I'll read the rest. These things delight me, yellow at my mouth, blue breath.
Reader, what will you read next?
What lovely light falls over your literary reverie. May you live in this moment, dear friend.
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ReplyDeleteThe plan is to read your book next!! Hope to finally have some time this weekend to download and devour it. Although I am slightly tempted to save it to read when I go on vacation next month. I like to hoard books like that.
ReplyDeleteNext for me is the second book of the "Wool" trilogy by Hugh Howey...
ReplyDeleteHave you read 'Light Years' by James Salter? ('Couples' brings it to mind.)
ReplyDeleteI have a new stack, bought at my hospital. We have a bookstore, filled with donations. Often there are more donations than room so they have a book sale. I have, "Any Known Blood" by Lawrence Hill, "The Falls" by Joyce Carol Oats, "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers and a lovely, surprisingly good book by Rebecca Flowers, "Nice To Come Home To". I love it when I buy an inexpensive book at a book sale and it turns out to be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThis weekend is devoted to renovations, which I now officially hate and can't think why in the hell I ever thought it was a good idea to renovate an apartment while living in it!
More L.A. sparkliness!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading a "yellow" book at the moment, "Half of a Yellow Sun," by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, about the Biafran war in Nigeria. Really good, though I must admit in my ethnocentrism that I'm having trouble keeping track of characters with similar (to me, at least) African names.
Comic books. There's a specific set I intend to pick up next month in San Diego.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing better than a stack of books to look forward to, is a beautiful space in which to sink in to them. This spot is amazing. I want to be in that chair, in that light.
ReplyDeleteYour book list is so...thoughtful and smart. I strongly recommend Bertrice Small, who is so delightfully smutty that you'll get all warm and squishy reading her.
ReplyDeleteI had to take Euphoria back to the library but I knew I was going to like it, maybe even love it. I got some Lydia Davis on my bedside as well, Roxanne Gay's An Untamed State, and Cormac McCarthy Outer Dark. But my most absorbing and beloved read this week, by far, has been your memoir.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't get into Boy, Snow, Bird, let me know if I should keep trying.
I'm finishing up Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Started it a while back and then left it at my sister's home in Kansas City. Bought another copy and am diving back into it. My sister now owns multiple copies of the book and informed me she plans to construct an end table out of them.
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