And what's on your bedside table? False teeth don't count.

People know I read a lot and often I get the question "What do you read the most?"  I want to answer "Books" but I don't think that's what they want to hear. Or I could say "backs of cereal boxes" but I don't eat cereal and thus don't read the backs of cereal boxes.  What else could I read?  Well, newspapers, I suppose.

But what people mean is what sort of genre of books do I read.  That's a difficult question.  I read a lot of junk, like random best sellers like "Girl on the Train" or "Lost Lonely Girl on the Train" or "Girl on a Train Watching Something in the Window" or whatever that book was called.  It was rather junky but I understand there is a movie based on that book soon to be released.  Why did I bother to read the book when I could have simply waited for the movie? What a dummy.  Maybe that's the best idea, don't read anything and just sit around and wait for them (whoever they are) to make a movie of whatever book I choose not to read.  Saves so much time, since reading a book can take upwards of 8 to 10 hours and a movie takes about two hours, plus the travel time to get there, so let's say three hours.  A savings of at least 5 hours! OK, no more reading for me.

But then there are those books that probably won't be made into a movie. I just finished reading "White Sands" by Geoff Dyer. It's a collection of essays about places he has visited and the experiences those places engendered and how he felt about it all. I have read other books by Dyer, mostly non-fiction, and he's a good writer. These writings are rather varied, from the Arctic, to Watts, to New Mexico and on and on, Dyer shares the trials and tribulations  of these diverse destinations. It's rather funny at times because all does not go well and at the same time you learn about places you probably will never visit, like Tahiti or China. Check it out and check out his other books as well, like the well-named "Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It."

At the same time I am reading "Hammer Head" by Nina MacLaughlin.  A memoir of sorts, a 30 year old woman who quits her job at a Boston newspaper and takes a job as a carpenter's assistant, with absolutely no experience with tools or terminology of building or anything to do with construction. But she gets hired by an independent woman contractor and she learns the job of lugging stuff, cutting tile, sawing boards, construction and demolition, of all that being a carpenter entails.  It's a good read, she's a good writer. Again, check it out, from the library would be a fine idea.

So yes, I read a lot of non-fiction, memoirs, essays, biographies, all that.  Current events, like Rachel Maddow's "Drift" and books by Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger. And one of my favorites, "The Wild Trees" by R. Preston, about amazing redwood trees, an incredible book.  (Thank you, Tom, for that one.)

But I also read a lot of what purists would call "junk."  Literary fiction, crime fiction, historical fiction as opposed to hysterical fiction, detective fiction, normal fiction. I don't read romantic or sci-fi fiction but that's just because I never have and thus have no scale of what to read in those genres.  It's like listening to jazz or country music.  Some I like, some I don't but I have too small of a reference base to pick and choose so I don't.  But since I love to read, I read books that take two days to read and books that take two weeks to wade through. I like both of those experiences.

I also read poetry, surprisingly.  Billy Collins, W.H. Auden, Kay Ryan, W.S. Merwin, Robert Hass.  I don't always like poetry but I think that's because I don't always have the patience for it.  When I like it, I buy it. And keep it and read it a lot.  Donald Justice. ("There's not enough Justice in the world.")  John Ashbery, although he confounds me most of the time, but not always.

I want to read Shakespeare's plays.  Someday I will. 

That's all for now. Time to read something. 

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