On the bookshelf

Forgot to list off the books I'm reading and what's on deck and what's newly scratched off my to-read list.

Reading:
- Running With Scissors (Augusten Burroughs) - apparently, I'm planning to read this man's life backwards, because I've already read and adored and recommended and forced on people his later memoir Dry. Here's a man who lived a life so far removed from my own experience that it's like being an Anthropologist on Mars (another great book...read it years ago and still recommend).
- Fluke and Practical Demonkeeping (Christopher Moore) - because any author worth reading is worth reading in stereo, I always say. I've just started reading Fluke (but got hooked after finding an amazing chapter online at the Today show book site - go there, trust me. I've picked up so many books after sneaking a peek at them there), but it's kinda got me hooked. Demon-keeping was his first novel, and is too weird for a one-line synopsis. Trust me on that one, too.

Just finished:
- Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris) - odd and the kind of thing that makes you go "Dude...except for the reams of illicit drugs this man consumed, and the bizarre performance art he perpetrated on society, and, well, the oodles of gay sex, I could be this guy..." Well, maybe not, since I didn't have a lisp as a child. However, it's a great read and truly odd and unusual.
- We Thought You Would Be Prettier (Laurie Notaro) - another book that made me wonder why more of the people who write for fun instead of profit are not, instead, writing for profit. It was funny, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd seen a lot of this stuff elsewhere, except better written and more amusing.

On deck:
In addition to the small forest of books I picked up on my recent sojourn to Minnysoooota (including a couple by one of my favourite MN authors Lorna Landvik and one by Neil Gaiman), I've also got a book called Incendiary sitting on my desk at work, waiting to be brought home. And that book, you know the one, by whatshername... Miriam Toews? Yeah. That's her. Plus, I've still got a stack of loaner books that seem to be slowly turning into coal beneath the weight of more recent loaners (not to mention guilt) that have been heaped upon them. I totally need to win a lottery, just so I can quit my job and catch up on my reading. And my tan. And my cabana-boy watching. Not necessarily in that order.