the book mill

I'm going to re-start this blog. I still want this to be a space where I write more about the books I'm reading. I have a few friends who actually keep active blogs about their day-to-day lives. It doesn't sound very exciting, but I actually really enjoy reading about how other people send their days. About their jobs, their friends, their weekend plans, their relationships. At the end of the year, my blogger-friends were able to look back through their blogs and visualize what they had accomplished through the year and used this to make new goals/resolutions for the new year. This inspired me to restart this blog. Since graduating college two years ago, I've become sort of an adult, I guess. My mother always said how time goes by faster as you get older I am starting to realize that she is right. In thinking back on 2007, I realized it was all a blur and all I could remember clearly of 2007 were the last 2 months of 2007. I could not even remember what I did on my birthday (I eventually remembered that I went out for Mexican food with the family). Anyway, this sort of scared me. I want some way of documenting my life, even if its a pretty "normal" life. I don't want time to be a blur, I want to remember more than just the big, life changing events that happen (births/deaths/marriages, i.e.) I want to look back and remember how I lived my life on a daily basis and how these little everyday things shape a life.

I don't think I'm going to write all the details of my everyday life on this blog. That would get boring really fast. I still like the idea of creating a book blog. I still hope to write about the books I'm reading, but not just give reviews and opinions, but write more about why I chose to read these particular books. What was going on my life at the time I was reading this book? How has this book influenced my life, if at all. How does my current life situation influence my opinions on this book? So, hopefully I will be blogging about my life, but through books.

I've been keeping track of the books I read on Facebook, as of May 2006. Let me just say that I've also a few Anita Shreve novels, large print editions, courtesy of my great aunt who gives us a bag load of books from her suspense/romance book of the month club every time she visits. Anyway, here the books.

Breaking out of Beginner Spanish - Joseph Keenan (currently reading)

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote

Summer Crossing – Truman Capote

Atonement – Ian McEwan

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America - Juan Gonzalez

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - Robert Caro (read about half of it, would like to finish it when I have more time or on vacation. It was just too big to bring back and forth to work everyday. Wish they made it into smaller volumes for easier transport)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann

The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs

Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind - David Quammen

Crossing Over: A Mexican family on the Migrant Trail - Ruben Martinez

The Fated Sky: Astrology in History - Benson Bobrick

Polio: An American Story - David M. Oshinsky

The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City - Jennifer Toth

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and the Fair that Changed America - Erik Larson

Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants - Robert Sullivan

Lucky: A Memior - Alice Sebold