books i am currently reading

some of my friends read books, and some of them read books for fun, and people that read books for fun are always plying other people that read books for fun with the question 'what are you reading right now?' because we want to know what we should be reading (or avoiding) next.
so this, friends, is what i'm reading right now.

i am reading the ever-delightful bill bryson's 'mother tongue: english and how it got that way,' which i purchased with my chapters gift card (thanks, loretta). i always think of picking up his travel books just for pleasure's sake, because he's so charming and readable and altogether winsome. AND educational. his other treasure of a text is 'a short history of nearly everything,' which is exactly as advertised. pick it up. peruse it. call me, and read your favorite bits to me over the phone. we'll have a good chortle together.

i am reading 'the power of positive thinking,' norman vincent peale's 1952 masterpiece which will 'help you release your inner powers.' i am mostly reading it for shits and giggles. it was given to me by this guy who...well, that's a long story, but he said it'd helped him a lot, so i tried to take it seriously at first. i'm really struggling to figure out what exactly is wrong with it (or with me), and if you've read it, i'd appreciate your opinion. if you havent, i present for you a segment of advice which he gave to a rather prompt and purpose-driven young lady who could not catch herself a man: 'then i said, 'you have a very firm way of pressing your lips together which indicates a domineering attitude. the average male, i might as well tell you, does not like to be dominated, at least so that he knows it.' then i added, 'i think you would be a very attractive person if you got those too-firm lines out of your face. you must have a little softness, a little tenderness, and those lines are too firm to be soft.' then i observed her dress, which was obviously quite expensive, but she didn't wear it very well, and so i said, 'this may be a bit out of my line, and i hope you won't mind, but perhaps you could get that dress to hang a little better...' then i suggested, 'perhaps it might help to get your hair fixed up a little. it's a little -- floaty. then you might also add a little sweet-smelling perfume -- just a whiff of it.' the pith of which is that you should be spineless and sneaky, free of wrinkles and flawless of dress, coiffed and fragrant, and then a man will come to you. point taken.

i am reading 'einstein: the life and times' (yes, jane, STILL) by ronald w. clark. joel whizzed through it, and i am plodding. i've read at least a score of books in the interim, and even that time i went out to chilliwack and ONLY brought the einstein book so that i wouldn't have anything else to read, i ended up buying a book for my mother and finishing that instead. it's just...sciencey. and political. and long, with small type. and chapter breaks at every forty pages or so. and no these:

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so that you can pause somewhere and put your bookmark in because your stop is coming up. but for all that, it's interesting, and i'm trying to read things outside of my preference zone (which is comprised largely of fantasy and chick-lit), AND joel read it, and i can't let a book stand that he has read and i have not.

and i'm reading a trillion bridal magazines.

and sometimes i read the Bible. it's quite good.

stay tuned for the following posts: books i have read in the past and which you should now also read; books i have read in the past and which you should probably avoid unless you enjoy entire chapters on why white is the scariest of all the colors (name that novel and you get a nickel!)