Reading From the Pneumonia Cycle

Yet another month interrupted by a sudden trip to the hospital to recover from my annual bout of pneumonia and again they caught it just in time. I don’t totally understand: I had been coughing and there was an ache in my upper chest for the last day or so, but I ws feeling fine: strong and active. But then I lay down for a short nap and couldn’t get up two hours later.

I was weak and feverish so I was shoved into an ambulance and rushed into the hospital emergency room where I lay on a gurney for two days since the hospital was overbooked. Then several days of antibiotics and I was well enough to send home with a two-inch thick collection of papers telling me what to do and what not to do.

Unfortunately I was out of the groove as far as reading was concerned and spent the next couple of weeks bingeing on Netflix and HBO on the computer. I always feel guilty when I’m watching the monitor instead of reading on the iPad but I have to admit I watched some decent, engaging fare on Netflix and even a good movie or two on HBO.

But I never gave my February reading list a chance so you may notice that I slid a few February titles ahead into March.

Here is the reading pool that will hopefully get me out of bingeing on Netflix and resume reading for fun and intellectual stimulation.

1. Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination — Peter Ackroyd
2. The Monkey-Wrench Gang — Edward Albee
3. God: A Human History — Reza Aslan
4. Taduno’s Song: A Novel — Odafe Atogun
5. Religion For Atheists — Alain de Botton
6. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World — Steve Brusatta
7. Love Is a Dog From Hell — Charles Bukowski
8. Slow Boat — Hideo Furukawa
9. Zero History — William Gibson
10. The Calcutta Chromosome — Amitav Ghosh
11. The Atheist’s Bible — Joan Konner
12. The Incendiaries — R. O. Kwan
13. Wolf Hall — Hilary Mantel
14. The Big Blowdown — George Pelecanos
15. Houses — Borislav Pekic
16. Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free — Charles P.. Pierce
17. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Robert M. Pirsig
18. The Locusts Have No King — Dawn Powell
19. A Man’s Head — Georges Simenon
20. Death of a Red Heroine — Qiu Xiaolong