From one book to another book to...

I am sure that most peoples' choice of reading material is linked from one book to another. For example, I know that when I like a series, I will attempt to read the next book or two in succession. But I am not really thinking in terms of series. I am trying to figure out how to follow the influences in my reading.

I want to track the books that help me choose the book I really think I need to read next. For example, recently I read selections in Watch for the Light, all of Kidd's Firstlight and then picked up Running to the Mountain by Jon Katz. If you had read all of these books you would not be surprised that Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain is now in my reading stack.

The first three books, especially Katz and Kidd owe their existence to Merton. The famous monk is a major influence in the lives of these other authors. This doesn't mean that Merton is about to make a difference in my life. It just means that I would like to see why he is so inspiring.

Sometimes three books suggest one author to me. The opposite is true of Mary Collins' Women at Prayer. This is a short book that I am reading because of the subject matter - prayer. However, by the time Collins is finished, I have three books that I would like to read, fortunately I own two of them. The third, Awful rowing toward God by Anne Sexton will take an ILL to get it.

Well I have written all this down. Now the question is: Will I find this information if I need it?

I finished another of my "To be read" (TBR) pile. This one was, Forty Acres and a Goat by Will Campbell. You can see my comments here:

http://www.shelfari.com/weavinglibrarian/shelf

The "review" on this website is not really a review - I just want to write down enough to remember the book. I need to practice writing reviews.

The May Book a Month Challenge. This continues to be a lot of fun.

I may be stretching the point here, but I really want to review Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario while it is still fresh in my mind. This was the book under discussion at my book group last night and it was a great choice. We had much more discussion than I had thought possible and the conversation may have started with immigration and Enrique, but we were all over the map.

Nazario is a reporter for the LA Times and after a conversation with the woman who cleans her house, Nazario felt compelled to research one small aspect of immigration from Central America. She managed to do a story for her paper on the _____ thousand children who ride the trains through Mexico to get to the US.

By following Enrique on his quest to be reunited with his mother (See there is the connection to this month's topic), Sonia Nazario put herself and us in these children's shoes. It is an amazing story.

All of us in the group had our moments with this book where we were depressed or overwhelmed. I won't lie - there are alot of difficult events in this book. However, I highly recommend this tale for several reasons.

1. This is a side of immigration that most of us know nothing about.


2. You will be amazed by the journey Enrique makes by himself.


3. What Sonia Nazario does as a reporter will blow you away.

I give this book a 9 on 1-10 scale. I think that this ranks up there with other good social issue nonfiction (like Nickel and Dimed) and I plan to pay a bit more attention to immigration as we go through the upcoming election.

Beauty - that is the topic for April at the Book A Month Challenge Blog. I said I was going to read Beauty shop for rent...full equipped, inquire within, forgetting that I had planned to do a poetry book, no matter what the subject suggested by Katie. April in my mind is for two things - National Library Week and National Poetry month.

So let's start with the poetry book. I read Thirst by Mary Oliver. Oliver is always going to be a favorite of mine, since she writes about nature in ways that are both familiar and startlingly new. For example, "The place I Want to Get Back To" contains all the usual references to Oliver's natural world, but the ending just blew me away - it was not what I expected.

This group of poems was written in response to Oliver's companion's death and so some of them were hard for me to read - so raw - in my opinion. "Letter to ____________" is a good example of that. Painful, wonderful, but painful.

I have Donald Hall's book, Without on my shelf. Now I want to go back and reread his responses to his partner's death. I think the two books together will really resonate with me. Both poets really do know how to "open a vein" as Red Smith once said.

Even if you don't normally read poetry - please find at least one poem to read this month. It is amazing how poets can create images that never leave your mind. If you can't find a poem you like, I would be happy to share.

Now on to something lighter. Poetry takes one kind of reading mood. Laura Bower's book was for a whole different mood. I hadn't read any young adult books for awhile, which was one of the reasons; I picked Beauty Shop for Rent... The next reason I picked the book, was the cover - such an infectious smile on Abbey's face. Although at the time, I did not know that her name is Abbey.

This impish looking teenager, Abbey, is being reared by her great-grandmother. Yes, you read that right, not her grandmother or mother, but her great-grandmother, who happens to run a beauty shop. Not only is Granny Po responsible for Abbey, but she has help from the spirited Gray Widows, who seemingly have not a lot to do besides getting their hair done.

Abbey (like most young women in YA novels) has a lot of problems in her life. However, Bowers creates a character and family that I found believable. Life is tough for Abbey, but in the course of the book she grows and learns about life. And by the end the reader is involved enough to be pulling for her. This is funny, sad and ultimately wonderful book.

I plan to share this book with some of the YAs in my life and I am looking forward to Laura Bowers' next novel.

I am on a real roll here and have just done my third thing in one day. Only one more to do after this.

Podcasts are something I have been using for awhile. I can't always listen to my favorite NPR shows when they come on our local station, so I have listened to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life among others on my computer.

I just finished listening to the podcast that Nancy Pearl (super librarian) does for a Seattle radio station. I couldn't figure out how to download that RSS feed, so I downloaded the RSS feed for the New York Times podcast.

Podcasts seem to have become ubiquitous. If you search book reviews - podcasts on Google, there are lots of choices. I can't even imagine how many hits you get if you just search podcasts.