On the Nightstand

Yesterday was all write-y. It took three days. Today, you get a list so I have more time for the next big thing.

The books on my nightstand (including the magazine rack at the bottom that became necessary for spillover):

  • Eaarth, Bill McKibben
  • Meditation for Beginners, Jack Kornfield
  • Darkspell, Katharine Kerr
  • Nelly & Caesar: Jumping, Dancing, and other Adventures, Ingrid Godon
  • Franklin in the Dark, Paulette Bourgeois
  • Evolutionary Witchcraft, Thorn Coyle
  • The Door to Time, Ulysses Moore
  • Taking the Leap, Pema Chodron
  • To a God Unknown, John Steinbeck
  • The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck
  • The Legacy, David Suzuki
  • Just Let Me Lie Down, Krising van Ogtrop
  • The Fairy’s Return, Gail Carson Levine
  • Pendragon: The Merchant of Death, D.J. MacHale
  • Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Roy Peter Clark
  • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
  • The Name of this Book is Secret, Pseudonymous Bosch
  • What’s Wrong Little Pookie, Sandra Boynton
  • The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
  • A Secret in My Pocket, Madeline Kronby
  • Being Human, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
  • The Water in Between, Kevin Patterson

I found 13 more on the floor on the other side of the bed, in various stages of read-ness but they don’t make the list. So let me ask: What’s on your nightstand?

seonaid

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5 responses to “On the Nightstand”

  1. Probably on the order of about 45 books (all old “haven’t read” SF from my grandfather’s collection. if there’s anything printed later than 1970, I’ll be surprised).

    Notepad & paper.

    Kleenex

    Clock

    Photos

    whatever toys got left there…

  3. Nothing is on my nightstand, actually, though there’s a basket of books underneath. In the bookbag: The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins, A Working Girl Can’t Win by Deborah Garrison, and The Kingdom of Ordinary Time by Marie Howe. I’ve been trying to avoid piling up the books. I read in stolen moments — on the subway ride home from dropping the Critter off at school, for example — and so I want to be sure that I always know what I’m reading. It’s my only hope of actually finishing something.

    • Oh, I never finish anything. 🙂 It’s odd; I’m not even reading most of the books on the nightstand. They’re just the ones I’m afraid of misplacing, I think. I notice I also never put away my copy of Orlando, and I know it’s out somewhere obvious, but I haven’t been reading it recently.

      Actually, I just totally lied. I started and finished Pema Chodron’s new book in the last 5 days. But I don’t finish much of what I start these days. I demand that the author hold my attention, rather than giving it freely. I’m a rather cruel reader, I fear. Too many books!

      I know what you mean about stolen moments; there was a time in my life that I was taking three graduate courses with a nursing infant in my arms. I kept thinking I needed to write an essay called, “Poststructuralism ninety seconds at a time.” Since yesterday I managed to read about 2 pages, because it is a challenging text and I need to get on a roll… which is difficult to do between calls of “Mummy!”

  4. Since my nightstand currently is a bookcase, I’m not going to list its contents. On the chair beside my office desk, which is the current repository of library books, plus whatever I’ve grabbed to have at hand (and so, is a good reflection of my reading for the next 3 weeks) are:

    The War of the World, Niall Ferguson
    Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin
    A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz
    This Land is Their Land, Barbara Ehrenreich
    beatrice and virgil, yann martel
    Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs (which I’ve already read, but am dipping into for some ruminations about the differences between Business Analyst work and Project Manager work)

    In my go-to-work bag are:
    Three Cups of Tea, Greg Morrison and David Oliver Relin
    Becoming Canada, Ken Dryden