faltering. in a good way.

As many of you know, I'm a list maker. I make lists of books I complete. By this I mean, I have a special notebook for this purpose, I list the title & number of pages & date completed. This list goes back for years. YEARS. If you're curious when (exactly) I read Truth or Dairy (which, by the way, I'd recommend to all you YA fans) - I could give you a precise date. But, basically the list is useless. And, yet, I'm compelled to continue. A year or so ago I thought about stopping. I couldn't. It's kind of obsessive, and I am gently inviting myself to cease some of these not-for-my-overall-betterment obsessive behaviors. Like the book list.

The whole thing has gotten kind of muddled since I started listening to talking books. Like, should I be listing them? This brings up the question - what, exactly, is it that I'm recording? Stories consumed? In that case, talking books qualify. Pages turned? They don't. Literature appreciated? Yes. Reading practiced? No. School also complicates the matter. Do textbooks count? How about novels assigned in school? List making of this sort needs to be very black and white - and that whole black and white structure has, finally, been questioned to the point of disintigration.

So, this week (Monday the 23rd, to be exact) I completed a book (I don't tell you how many pages, because, geez, Toni, give it up, it's not important) and DIDN'T put it on the list. I think I'm stopping.

But one of the things the list offered was a way to look back and say, "See, self, you read that book, wasn't that good?"

So what I'm choosing to do instead is talk about what I read. Not that I didn't do that already. But, still.

So, this week I finished reading Green Fires: Assault on Eden: A Novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest, by Marnie Mueller. It's not particularly good writing. In fact, I'm pretty unimpressed with her writing. But the story is beautiful and powerful and compelling. I would recommend it to Lis (for obvious reasons, and please, let's discuss when you're done) and anyone interested in Latin American issues and anyone who speaks English best, Spanish second best, German third best, and also knows a little bit of Quichua. (If there is someone reading this blog who that is true for, please let me know. Besides myself and the author of this book, I bet we're pretty rare.)