I read a little bit, but truth is, not that much. Sitting around at my mother’s house this winter though, I had more time on my hands than usual, and I read a few books I wouldn’t have read otherwise. Books in the photo are some of them, not all. I just looked around quickly and gathered some up for this photo.
Ok, honestly, I didn’t even read all of these.
“They Wrote on Clay,” I didn’t read. Mom pulled that book off her shelf when we were talking about ancient writing and we glanced over it looking at the examples of cuneiform and talking about the differences between different cuneiform writings.
“The Story of the Clipper Ship” is a fast easy read. It’s a fun little synopsis of the clipper ship era. I’ve always loved clipper ships. As a child I built a couple of those 3 ft Revell plastic models and at one time knew the names of all the sails.
“Guns, Germs, and Steel” is an amazing whirlwind tour and interpretation of the history of civilization. It inspired lots of conversation with my mom, including the ones mentioned here about writing.
“Radical Knowing,” I tried, but just couldn’t get into it. It’s philosophy, and I just haven’t figured out how to appreciate philosophy yet.
“Radical Evolution” is about the coming technological singularity. I believe this stuff already, so the book was preaching to the choir with me. It seemed a good book, but I was bored with the old news and didn’t read very far.
“Godel, Escher, Bach,” I read long ago and I loved it. I pulled this one off the shelf during our discussion of writing because I remembered it had a page illustrating diverse scripts of different languages.
“Night and Low Light Digital Photography,” my mom picked for me at the library. I was an interesting contrast to Jill Waterman’s book that I bought last year. While both books talked about both technical and artistic aspects, this book focused more on the technical aspects. I liked Jill’s book better.
“City In Time” was so engaging, I grabbed my mom and made her go through the book with me. It is a book of pairs of photos, one historic, and one recent.
Peterson’s “Field Guide to Western Birds” is a classic. No I didn’t read it cover to cover, but did dig through it a bit trying to identify birds we saw out the back window of the house.
“Jane Eyre,” required reading. Wonderful book. Just read it.
“The Other Boleyn Girl” was fascinating and a great read. It’s history with a bit of conjecture, thus forcing it to be categorized “historical fiction” with the standard disclaimer that all persons are fictional. It was also fun to find the movie version on cable tv while I was there.
“The Secret Life of Bees” was absolutely delightful. Another one I highly recommend.
“The Law of Love” I read some time ago. I pulled it out again to refresh my memory of the historical period. This, after reading something in “Guns, Germs, and Steel” or perhaps after some conversation with my mom about the European conquest of the Americas.
“The Alchemist’s Daughter,” more empowering fiction. Very good.
The two Boyd books, “My Husband Betty” and “She’s Not the Man I Married,” were fantastic. Absolutely required reading for any married crossdresser, but highly, highy recommended for anyone interested in gender.
Of books not pictured here, most memorable was Michner’s “Chesapeake.” Just wonderful.
