You hear it all the time: some people even consider not-reading to be a positive characteristic. Of course there are levels and varieties of not-reading: some business types would not be caught reading fiction (although I knew a powerful corporate officer that rejected all fiction … except the romantic bodice rippers he read secretly at night in bed; some social climbers only read (or professed to having read) the most mainstream best-sellers; some readers are overly restrictive, concentrating on a specific genre such as fantasy or science fiction; and there are those who refuse to read anything older than ten years.
Me? I read (or try reading) just about anything. I tend to eschew dreck no matter what the subject or genre. Many years ago, on a friend’s recommendation I powered down a strong collection of science fiction until my eyes glazed over with terminal boredom. A friend, as mentioned, introduced me to detective and mystery stories and I covered several significant authors (I like the series concept). Although I have had a resurgence only recently, I have regularly read the genre and followed the continuing series authors.
My daily reading suggestions (summarized below for May) tend to be books or even simply book titles that pique my interest. I can’t vouch for the ultimate value of any of these titles but, as they say, I wouldn’t kick them off the bookshelf.
05-01-19 – The Complete Robot — Issac Asimov
05-02-19 – Das Boot — Lothar-Günther Buchheim
05-03-19 – The Shooting Party — Anton Chekhov
05-04-19 – Dusklands — J. M. Coetzee
05-05-19 – Homeland Security Ate My Speech — Ariel Dorfman
05-06-19 – A Little History of Literature — John Sutherland
05-07-19 – Tijuana Book of the Dead — Luis Alberto Urrea
05-08-19 – The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins – Irvine Welsh
05-09-19 – Everything Trump Touches Dies — Rick Wilson
05-10-19 – Throwaway Daughter — Ting-xing Ye
05-11-19 – Gold That Frames the Mirror — Brandon Melendez
05-12-19 – If My Body Could Speak — Blythe Baird
05-13-19 – A Woman Is No Man — Etc Rum
05-14-19 – Why Bob Dylan Matters — Richard F. Thomas
05-15-19 – The Heat’s On — Chester Hines
05-16-19 – The Best of Everything — Rona Jaffe
05-17-19 – Porius — John Cowper Powys
05-18-19 – Zuleikha — Guzel Yakhina
05-19-19 – Heroes — Stephen Fry
05-20-19 – Come With Me — Helen Schulman
05-21-19 – Killing the Blues — Michael Brandman
05-22-19 – The Epic City — Kushanava Choudhury
05-23-19 – Walking Backwards — John Koethe
05-24-19 – The Girl on the Velvet Swing — Simon Baatz
05-25-19 – The Lonesome Bodybuilder: Stories — Yukiko Motoya
05-26-19 – The Spirit of Science Fiction: A Novel — Roberto Bolaño
05-27-19 – Vita Nostra: A Novel — Sergey and Marina Dyachenko
05-28-19 – Ultima — L. S. Hilton
05-29-19 – The Woman’s War — Gena Glass
05-30-19 – Little Boy — Lawrence Ferlinghetti
05-31-19 – The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics — Leonard Susskind & George Hrabovsky
A Celebration of Reading 