Two Days of Surfing

I can't believe that I've spent the last couple of days not picking up a book.  Well, I have picked up a couple of books, I just haven't read any.

What I have been doing is wandering around the Internet reading blogs, tweets, email, zines, and other stuff.  Of course visiting blogs and reading reviews does add to my growing list of things I want to read and that has gotten out of hand. I spent a lot of time housekeeping at Goodreads.

So what's coming up? Here are a few things.

On October 18 Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon.  I've signed up as Martha G. Last time I read five books. Best to pick ones that have a strong narrative, not to much philosophy and deep thinking. Make sure final book is something light--I made a mistake with this last time.

In November Lizzy's Literary Life is sponsoring German Literature Month IV I'll set aside some things for this. Can't pass this by--Germany is one of my former places of residence.

Reviews
JacquiWine's Journal can always be counted on for good reviews particularly of literature in translation. She frequently reviews things that I have under consideration. That was the case this morning with her review Pascal Garnier's Moon in a Dead Eye. For some reason I've never read any Garnier so I placed some holds on what is available locally (three titles, including this one).  All three are currently in use so I'll have a wait of at least a week.

Winstonsdad's Blog is another great source for reviews of lit in translation. The Sermon on the Fall of Rome by Jérôme Ferrar is today's review. This one goes on my wish list. Not available at local libraries.

Waiting at the library. I just got a notice that The complete cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (Translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, and William Weaver) is waiting for me on the holds shelf. But the library is closing at 2pm and won't open again until Monday (a local fair takes over the whole town this weekend) so I won't have it for a few days.

Lists
BookRiot's An African Reading List has over seventy titles from thirty countries. It's a good resource, I've read a few from the list and all were worthwhile reads:
   The Cairo Trilogy – Naguib Mahfouz
   Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan
   In a Strange Room – Damon Galgut
   The Three – Sarah Lotz
   We Need New Names – NoViolet Bulawayo
Another is scheduled as my next read, I have it out from the library:
   All Our Names – Dinaw Mengestu

Over on Storify David Hebblethwaite has put together a list : Twitter recommends essay collections with some overflow on his blog Follow the Thread. I do love a good essay collection--especially when I travel.

In the kitchen
Tuesday I picked up something from the new book shelf at the community college library.
   Better bean cookbook: more than 160 modern recipes for beans, chickpeas, and lentils to tempt meat-eaters and vegetarians alike. We haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but the pictures are delicious.
 I just had cheese ravioli and broccoli for lunch. Scored lots of points with housemate as I finished up two leftovers. So now the fridge is leftover free which means we can cook up a batch of beans.

Acquisitions
 An ARC of Us by David Nicholls came in yesterday's mail.  And I got an email notice that I won a copy of Madame Picasso by Anne Girard (along with some DVD's) thanks to Beth Fish Reads. I hope it gets here in time for the Read-a-Thon, it sounds perfect for that.

There's a lot more going on in my reading this fall but my housemate just wandered in and shook her head at the stacks of books which are overpowering the lovely bouquet she put on my desk yesterday.  Guess it's time for a little organizing.