Among the 7 Habits of Effective writers is to read a lot.
This ongoing Books Read in 2013 plan is from the Jonathan Ball and Ryan Fitzpatrick 95 books in a year idea. It goes handily with my love of documenting.
I find that I can only taste a book when I’m switching between distinct voices and subjects. My habit is pick away at half a dozen books in parallel. If I’m down to 2 interesting books, I can read neither easily.
So, the year thus far…
- Day and Night: Poems by Dorothy Livesay (Oolichan Books, 1944, 2011)
- Life in a Medieval City by Frances and Joseph Gies
- Still: (to be) Perpetual by Matthew Cooperman (dovetail, 2007)
- Cleo & the salamander by Amanda Earl (Le Temps des Cerises, 2012)
- Newspaper Blackout by Austin Keon (Harper, 2010)
- Memoirs by Evelyn H.C. Johnson (Chiefswood, 2009)
- The Wild Braid: A poet reflects on a century in the garden by Stanley Kunitz (Norton, 2005)
- English Montreal Poetry of the Seventies, edited by Andre Farkas and Ken Norris (Véhicule Press, 1977)
- Methodist Hatchet by Ken Babstock (Anansi, 2011)
- Conflict by Christine McNair (BookThug, 2012)
- Carry On Dancing by Heather Grace Stewart (Winter Goose Publishing, 2012)
- We’ll Always Have Parrots: A Meg Langslow Mystery by Donna Andrews (St. Martins, 2004)
- Born on a Blue Day: A Memoir of Asperger’s and an Extraordinary Mind by Daniel Tammet (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006)
- Communication is essential: Joanne Kyger: Letters to and From (CUNY Lost and Found Series, 2012)
30 pages here, 10-30 in the other half dozen at each sitting. It also keeps me from trying to absorb too fast.
tbc