What I’m Reading

For years now I’ve read in batches, usually two to four books at a go. Currently I’m enjoying rather more than that, though it slows down my completion rate! Aside from a few loved periodicals, I’m deep in:

• The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1958. I found this on my mom’s bookshelf. It’s full of hysterical definitions, and my husband I read it out loud, a page at a time. It’s a slim volume, and will be finished all too soon. An example ~  “Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.”
• Hippy Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat, by Jonathan Kauffman, 2018. The Sunday paper turned me onto this a couple of weeks ago. It speaks to both of our family’s food heritage, and now I’m learning where it all started. I highly recommend this book.
• Art & Fear, by David Bayles & Ted Orland, 1993. I’m reading this for the second time. It talks about what’s in the way of you and your art. After the first reading, I gave it to my father, an actual artist. It helped me understand him so much more.
• Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein, 2007. This was a gift from my mom’s oldest and dearest friend. Having focused on math and the hard sciences, there was no time for philosophical sciences while in school. This volume makes it delightfully accessible. Funny thing is we gave this to my youngest daughter some years ago, who really enjoyed philosophy in college.
• Gifts of the Crows, by John Marzluff & Tony Angell, 2013. This was an NPR find, and is a confirming scientific work for those of us who know (and those of you who don’t, will be converted) just how smart crows and corvids are. It gets thick enough to capture the interest of a neurologist, and entertaining enough to have you laugh out loud at times. Highly recommended. 
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, 1962. With the movie out, my husband was flabbergasted that I’d never read this, and ordered it immediately. I’m powering through this delightful story.
• The Hidden Half of Nature, David R. Montgomery & Anne Bikle, 2016. This is a soils geek’s paradise, and a nice refresher to my soils class from eight years ago, but with no homework, and amazing humor. 
• Color Play, 2nd edition, Joan Wolfrom, 2014. This is an in-depth tutorial on color in regards to quilting, and a feast for the eyes.   

Mom’s friend, who gave me Plato and the Platypus, has queued up my next book, Ursula K. Le Guin’s final publication, No Time to Spare, Thinking About What Matters.