What I've been up to...

Once upon a time I enjoyed to read...but that was before high school.  Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad and The Stranger Albert Camas just sucked all the joy out of all that was good in the world of literature. Good grief, just the thought of existentialism still makes me shudder. 

Existentialists just need to jump in a pool of sunshine and stop thinking

I have since learned that text books made good pillows and math people just don't know how to write. (I'm looking at you Gardner. You truly made math its own language)

However

Since I'm still waiting to start my job I have nothing but time to do great things like read into the wee bitty hours of the morning!! So I will share with you the joys of what I have found this summer and very recently.

For all my microbiology friends I decided to take Dr. Johnson's challenge and read this:

Basically it was thought provoking and made me realize that I don't need to be a scientist...because they are jerks. Really big jerks. Don't worry to all my science friends you don't have to lose your souls. Oh yeah and I couldn't put it down after he went to cure yellow fever. Heart wrenching!! Bah.

Then I started reading this and realized how freakn awesome Maurice Hilleman was. And how much I loved vaccines.

 And then I realized I was a wee bit obsessed with the history of microbiology...

                                                    

and now I checked this out from the library:

The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis -Also by Dr. Paul A. Offit is going to come after that.

I've also started reading Swallow the Ocean: a memoir by Laura Flynn. It was a little too disturbing close to home and poorly written for me to finish reading. Another bad idea was checking out I am the Central Park Jogger from the library. For those unfamiliar with this incident like I was it's about a horrific event that happened to a female jogger in central park and how she came to terms with it and rebuilt her life. I had nightmares. I much prefer this book I am now 75% complete with:

"To John, for convincing me that everyone who is interesting has a past."

Another really good one I learned about this summer was by Viktor E. Frankl 

This book was about how people found hope and held on to it through their time in the concentration camps. If that isn't encouraging I don't know what is.

And then there was that one more required book that I had to finish. The infamous

 ...Except while you are waiting for something to happen and you know... FALL APART it doesn't. And you keep reading thinking maybe in the next chapter. And you keep going until finally you hit the last few chapters in a 200 something page book. Then things fell apart. And I felt empty and cheated through 180 pages of build up. 

The current library books I have are, besides The Glass Castle:

• Hope in Our Hearts by Russel M. Nelson

• Broken Things to Mend by Jeffrey R Holland

(Side note on books by LDS General Authorities: At least these ones that I have read are just a compilation of talks they have already given. Which was really cool for easy access but not what I expected)

• The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

• The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember 

(Another side note: I really didn't appreciate all that Mr. Rogers did when I watched his shows. He really was a great man) 

• Achieving Your Life Mission by Randal A. Wright

(I just saw this sitting on a friend's bed and it has been amazing. I highly recommend it)

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high by Kerry Patterson
• Influencer: The power to change anything by Kerry Patterson

(These were recommended highly by a friend and I took the challenge. When I first read the titles I was skeptical but it actually looks like it will be good for me. Go figure) 

Then there are these two that I have been slowly reading all summer-they are more thought provoking books

• The Peace Giver: How Christ offers to heal our hearts and homes by James L. Ferrell
• The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Oh yeah one more flop that I read or skim-read and lost IQ from:

Don't judge me! I was lured in by the hilarity of it all!  

"Elizabeth hopes to renew her relationship with Darcy, but his aunt, the Lady Catherine, interferes, insisting that her daughter Anne is a better match for her nephew. Lady Catherine challenges Elizabeth to a fight to the death, intent on eliminating the competition, but Elizabeth defeats Catherine and her cadre of ninjas. She spares Catherine's life. Darcy is touched by this gesture, and he returns to Elizabeth. The two cheerfully wipe out a field of zombies (their first battle as a couple) and begin a long and happy future together, insofar as the ever-present threat of zombie apocalypse permits it."

I was lured in by zombie apocalypse!! But it turns out although it appealed to that 12 year old side of me, it was like a 12 year old boy mashed in as much gore and ridiculous violence as he could every other paragraph. My IQ dropped. At one point while fighting ninjas Elizabeth strangles one with his own colon after disemboweling him. Over kill much? I blame it for at least 2 months of my failure in the job market.

Oh the joys of reading for fun again. :-) Brings a skip to my step and a smile to my face. You would know that if I ever left the house and stopped reading during the day...probably

Since I know my life is going to be turned upside-down as soon as I start working and I won't be able to indulge in reading I'm putting a list of books I still want to read here. For future reference that is...

• The Life of Pi Yann Martel
• Three Cups of Tea Greg Mortenson
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon 
  
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer     
• The Princess Bride
• A biography on Isaac Newton. This guy's a science BEAST!

Any more books that I should add to this list?  It's kind of interesting to see the journey I've been through this past year just based on the books I have decided to read. Pretty good indication on where I have been. Huh, go figure.