What's on your bookshelf - September

Month two of my new found wish to discuss my reading addiction. Do two months make a trend?

What follows is my list – what is on your list?

September

Books identified:

• Solo, William Boyd
• Beau Geste, P.C. Wren
• The Hired Girl, Laura Amy Schlitz
  

Books acquired:

• Past Imperfect, Julian Fellowes
• Stormy Weather, Cark Hiaasen
• Devil May Care, Sebastian Faulks
• Paper Towns, John Green
• The Golden Specific, S.E. Grove
• The Game: The Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry, Ken Magee
• Dance of the Bones, J.A. Jance
• The Solomon Curse, Clive Cussler

Books read:

• Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
• Devil May Care, Sebastian Faulks
• The Solomon Curse, Clive Cussler
• Achieving Success Through Social Capital, Wayne Baker
• The Golden Specific, S.E. Grove

I finally finished Infinite Jest! And 3 months before my self-imposed deadline. I must admit, the book ended abruptly in the middle of the story. After all that work getting through it, I expected a little closure. I went through the following steps: 1. Looking to make sure I didn’t miss anything (it’s an e-book); 2. Re-reading the first chapter; 3. Leveraging the internet to see if I could find any more information. Through THE Google, I found this quote: “If your experience finishing Infinite Jest mirrors mine, then after you threw the book across the room, picked it up and re-read the first chapter, then threw the book again, you went to Google and entered: “WHAT HAPPENED IN INFINITE JEST?” Yup, that pretty much summed up my experience with the book.

To show that these posts are not just the literary equivalent of the cat poster on LinkedIn saying “Hang in there,” I did in fact read a business book this month:

Achieving Success Through Social Capital came highly recommended. It is part of the University of Michigan Business School’s Management Series. This was a very good (and quick read). Some of the details are a bit dated (no mention of LinkedIn, and he suggests scrolling through your Palm Pilot and Rolodex to find contacts), but the strategies for actively managing your social networks and the capital that can come from them are very useful. I’ve started applying some of the principles already.

One last thought: You may (or may not) notice that my lists often include a fair amount of Young Adult fiction. With daughters in the Young Adult range, I like to try and read some of what they are reading. It gives us additional topics of conversation, I get to keep up to date on what interests them, and actually, a lot of it is pretty good.