Thursday 13: Books to read Q1 2012

on't you just love the optimism with which that title is stated? Yes, there are BOOKS on my reading list. And yes, 13 of them. For. The. First. Quarter. So there, silly internet feeds, blogs and Facebook. Take that. I'm claiming reading back, for me. Books, in paper form (yes you) I've missed you. Let's fall in love again.

All it takes to get me aching to read is just sitting in front of my bookcases--I have stacks of books I haven't ever read, horrors. I'm sure a girlfriend or two reading this will remember that a few years back I said I wasn't going to buy any new books until I'd read everything in my current bookshelf. Ha ha ha ha. (That laughter could go on for some time...) Alas, that lasted, oh, a month or two. E-books are one downfall, and the discount bookstore is another. Sigh. But all the books on this list are the "real" kind, with paper and spines and ink!

The list includes a couple of re-reads, as well as number of books that have languished for years with my full intention to read them, like, soon. Whatever. The time has arrived.

1. Born to Run, Christopher McDougall. This one has been on the nightstand for far too long... and given my ongoing desire to run (currently lacking motivation, but the desire is still there, for sure), I hope this gives me a wee kick in the butt.

2. Bird by Bird (reread), Anne Lamott. It's been a good five or six years since I first read this book, and so it's faded from my memory a bit but the vague recollections I have are that it was inspiring and motivating in the writing realm. I am hopeful it is a needed boost in that direction for me...

3. Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri. I can't say enough good things about everything I've read of Jhumpa Lahiri's (The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies are also great). I read this a few years ago and am looking forward to the reread--it's three stories in one, and should be a quick read too, from what I remember.

4. Floor Sample, Julia Cameron. I first found Julia Cameron via Faith and Will, just last year at the discount bookstore down at the Oregon coast. I very much appreciated her perspective on "spirituality though the storms of our lives" and so am interested in her actual memoir. She was married to Martin Scorsese (who knew? not me) and has had some ups and downs with her professional career--she wanted to be an artist but has known far more success as a writer about the artistic process.

5. The Wishing Year, Noelle Oxenhandler. Another memoir... must be a theme for me right now!

6. Tribal Leadership, Dave Hogan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright. This book came my way via dear friend Sara, who picked up copies at a conference she was at this fall. I like the general concept and am looking forward to what I can learn from it.

7. On the Threshold: Home, Hardwood and Holiness, Elizabeth J. Andrew. The title drew me in. We'll see how it delivers...

8. The Power of Less, Leo Babauta. A slim volume (or purpose, I imagine!), I think I'll be able to glean good stuff from this book on "limiting yourself to the essential, in business and life."

9.  Stones from the River (reread), Ursula Hegi. I had a big Ursula Hegi crush in the 1990s, and this was the first one I read. I have many others on the shelf, but I'm going back to the beginning, and hope it lives up to my sweet memory of it.

10. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini. I think this is actually a borrowed, some three years later (horrors!) book from my sister-in-law, Kim. (Sorry, Kim, I will get it back to you!) I have been meaning to read it, and meaning to read it... and now I will!

11. Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (reread), Elizabeth Marquardt. I read this a few years ago, and sent it to a good friends whose parents divorced when she was a child, to get "an insider's perspective." She said it rang true, and I know I appreciated some of the perspective it gave me relative to Seth and his upbringing post-divorce. I hope it does that again, some five years after I first read it. Sometimes I do need a refresher on perspective...

12. Lit: A Memoir, Mary Karr. Memoir! Agan! Apparently quite smartly written, I've been looking forward to this one for a bit.

13. Second Honeymoon, Joanna Trollope. This novel is about mothering and letting go and things coming back around again. Sounds up my alley. We'll see how it goes...

I'm hoping that there's something very immediate and present about having these books on my nightstand and available; in fact, since I started writing this post, I've cracked a couple to see which reaches out and grabs me first/most. Sometimes with books tucked away on my iPad, I actually forget they are there and can spend quite a bit of time downloading new samples rather than reading the ones that I have... maybe those can be Q2 reading!

What's on your reading list for the new year? Let me know (you know I always like new reading ideas!)...

For more Thursday 13s, go here.