Here's what I'm going to do. I'm folding my book blog into my regular/personal blog from now on. So you can simply go to Julia's Mexico City to read about books but also about all the other things going on in my life. If you only want to read about what books I'm reading, go there and click on "books" in the category cloud.

See you in Julia's Mexico City!

Clearly I am focused on other things. This happens.

The first is "Emergency" by Neil Strauss. We've been having a few earthquakes in LA lately which got me focused on refreshing our emergency kit (which we did and it was fun). I also have friends who are into emergency training and urban escape and survival. This book fit into all of that, not to mention the other book I read last fall "The Unthinkable." So far this book is a bit beyond how I would prepare. I'm not looking for a 2nd passport and a 2nd country to call home in case things really go to shiznet here in the US. I'm an optimist so I'm not looking for that. I'm curious about the rest of the book so I'll finish it soon.

The other book I got in that order was "Food Of A Younger Land -- A portrait of American food--before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal regional, and traditional--from the lost WPA files" by Mark Kurlansky. With our recent road trip to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley and my love for all things Americana (ie road trips, diners, route 66) and history in general, I thought this would be fascinating. I look forward to it. 

It also makes me think of a show that Alton Brown did a few years ago, "Feasting on Asphalt: the River Run" which was about traveling up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. I want to do that trip. Kurt warns me that there might not be so much healthy food along the way. Well, these are the sacrifices we make.

I finished with Here Comes Everybody and really enjoyed it, highly recommend it if you are curious about why Twitter is so popular, what makes Wikipedia work so well, and how some little blog can make a huge difference.

When I finished "Outliers" I continued to read Here Comes Everybody (and still am) and started Losing My Religion by William Lobdell. He was a born again Christian in his 20's and became a religion correspondent for the LA Times. While writing he came to a major turning point in his faith. 

While finishing the other two books, I started reading "Here Comes Everybody-The Power of Organizing without Organizations" by Clay Shirky.

I finished both Why We Suck and Outliers. Denis Leary still made me laugh, but I did get a bit tired by the last chapter or two. I would still recommend it.

Why I suck -- so busy working on the other blog that I have been sorely remiss at writing about what I'm reading. Though in all truthiness, I am reading much less in book form than before. Part of it is because I was working so much last fall that it was hard to read more than a page or two at night. Once the PJs are on and I'm in bed, the zzzzz start coming fast. 

Now I have much more time on my hands and have been reading to improve myself, as well as catching up on magazines that have started to multiply on their own. I swear to gods that for every one Oprah I read, three more appear in its place. I do like my Budget Travel very much, though it is a bit of a tease right now. All I want to do is travel but budget does not allow for the moment. 

I currently have bookmarks in:

and 

and

and

Luckily they are all the kind that can be read in short bits. With my short attention span brain these days, it's for the best. 

I love Denis Leary. LOVE HIM. He's angry and bitter and harsh and a recovering addict, a stoked husband and father, a good actor and, ahem, kinda hot. I've read about two or three chapters and he makes me laugh out loud. I sometimes find myself getting defensive about what he writes but then suddenly realize I might be making his point by reacting that way. Plus he has a very very very clear voice. I would like to have a very very very clear voice with what I write.

Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae is general marketing in the new millennium info. It's geared toward business 2.0 and 3.0 and since I am a writer and am also trying to establish stuff online, I find it helpful and inspiring. He writes concise things -- my current email signature is his: "Remarkable is a choice". Good thing to remember so I'll get off my ass and make things happen, not just sit around waiting for someone to see how remarkable I am in my own mind (and office).

Mom bought me Disquiet Please, a collection of New Yorker articles. Somehow I find it more interesting and easier to read this book, article by article, than I do to read the magazine. Hmmmm. 

Outliers I started ages ago (okay 6 weeks) and I do need to get back to it. I like Malcolm Gladwell, having devoured The Tipping Point and Blink. 

I did also get a new book called "Such A Pretty Fat" by Jen Lancaster. The subtitles are: "One narcissist's quest to discover if her life makes her ass look big; or why pie is not the answer." The front cover already makes me laugh so I have high hopes.

Reading is fundamental.

I am staggered that it has been three months since I've written on this blog. Wow. I have been reading, but in very little drips and drabs. November and December were kind of a wash as I was working like crazy and then visiting my mom over the holidays. January was busy preparing for the new year and working on other new blogs. But there are books on my nightstand and books on their way from Amazon. I will catch up on all that soon.

When I started working, I limped through a few pages every night of "English Creek" as a soothing balm before going to bed. When that was done, I got through a few magazines that had piled up, mostly New Yorkers, mostly the comics. 

But my library wait list finally coughed out a few books and I spent the last few weeks flying through two of them. The first one I read was "What Shamu Taught Me About Life Love And Marriage" by Amy Sutherland. It's a quick fun read about animal training and how you can apply these techniques to people. It's not about manipulation but more about how you change your own behavior to get the best out of people around you. It's about positive reinforcement. Mostly I like the animal training anecdotes which is fascinating stuff. Animals learn so fast that trainers have to train themselves not to accidently reward behavior they do not want. If a non-wanted behavior gets a laugh or a sigh or a frown or some kind of body language, the animal will do the same unwanted behavior when the trainer laughs or sighs or frowns or whatever. Talk about intense!

Speaking of intense, the next book on my list was "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes" by Amanda Ripley. She writes about what happens to people while in the midst of an emergency - plane crashes, hostage situations, fire, etc. The human mind works in a variety of ways, and how you would respond is based on your genetics and your upbringing. But the key thing to getting out alive is training. How would you get out of a situation. Of course you can't plan and train for all possibilities, but even doing something as simple as looking for your nearest exit on a plane, reading the emergency card and watching the demo before the flight takes off can save your life. It really can. On 9/11 in the twin towers, Morgan Stanley had about 3000 employees in their offices that morning. Only 11 of them died. Why? Training. They had a security expert who warned the company in 1992 that the towers were vulnerable, especially in the parking area,and he wanted better training for all the employees. But he was ignored, it would be too expensive. Then the truck bombs went off and people evacuated, but way too slowly. So the expert got permission to begin hard core training. Part of that training was FULL ON drills where everyone had to walk down all 40 - 50 floors to the ground. They trained to overcome common emergency behavior: panic, paralysis, politeness. And when the planes hit, after years of training, they all got out safely, except for the security chief and other safety personnel. That is amazing and really made me conscious of exits and emergency plans. I might just hold a safety drill at work...

It took a while to finish reading The Mother Tongue and I skipped a few parts as I've read the book quite a few times. But it make me feel better. Then I got word that Little Brother by Cory Doctorow was ready for me at the library. I started reading it immediately and finished it within a couple of days.  It's technically "young adult" but it worked just fine for this 40-something year old. It's a near-future story about teenage hackers, a terrorist attack on San Francisco and revolution. It's quite inspiring to me not to just let the government continue to erode our freedoms now. But I'm also quite lame at computer stuff so there would be a steep learning curve to try and know a fraction of what these kids know. It's a great read, a real page turner.

Reading for me usually happens at night before bed.  It might be a few minutes of a magazine and my eyelids start to get heavy or it could be an hour depending on which Harry Potter novel has come out. (Dang, no more of those...)  It's not often I read during the day but the last couple of weekends I have started the weekend morning off wih a few more pages.

This morning it was to finish up the last section of David Sedaris's new book.  It was thoroughly enjoyable and I will loan it to anyone who wants it.  Yesterday I picked up two books that were waiting for me at the library.  The first is The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs.

I had listened to his newer book, The Year Of Living Biblically on the drive back from the Callahan's a few weeks ago and enjoyed it so much I wanted to go back to Mr. Jacob's first book.

The Year of Living Biblically is quite unexpected.  Mr. Jacobs is not a man of faith.  Jewish but raised with barely any practice, not even a bah mitzvah, he decided to explore the book that seems to get so many people in such hot water.  I really recommend it as it is touching and funny and somewhat inspiring.  I won't spoil it for you, but it has next to nothing to do with Religion and God (notice the capital letters).  It's about faith and spirit and your fellow man. 

The Know It All promises to have some pretty fun stuff going on, mostly because Mr. Jacobs laughs easily at himself, something I'm learning to do better.  Speaking of laughing at myself, while I don't need/use glasses currently, the copy of the book I got is large print and I have to say I quite like it.

Speaking of God, I also reborrowed The God Delusion and hope to get to it not long after The Know it All.

I think I have just received the last two books I will actually purchase for a long while. Austerity measures are on. These two books, plus a pad of beautiful paper and a luscious bar of soap are my treats to myself for all that I have done and all that I have endured for the last 3 months. I can't wait to read these books. First, I could not resist David Sedaris. He makes me laugh out loud and then I have to read aloud to Kurt, whether Kurt wants to hear it or not. I still quote Mr. Sedaris from his previous book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Demin, the story where he is trying to drown a mouse. You have to read it, but the part where the guy looks down into the bucket and says "Oh, you have a little swimming mouse" slays me!

Then somewhere I read about this book and being rather well-endowed myself, I had to get it.  I'm sure there will be quite a bit of laughter and knowing nods as I read.

If you've been following my other blog you know about my sister dying. Two weeks ago.

We got home from it all on Saturday (april 26) and on Monday the 28th went to the library to pick up two books that were waiting for me. One is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, which I will get to this weekend perhaps and the other was "We Lived At The Almont" by Eleanor Clymer.

This was a book I read in elementary school, Lihikai School to be exact. It's about a girl who is poor, her father is a Super in an old building in New York. They move into a building that is so much better than all the other places they've lived and she makes new friends, befriending a rich girl who lives a few blocks away. I don't know why I always remembered that title. I read a zillion books in elementary school, not sure why that title and story stick out. So I got it again and read it. It was a nice escape but didn't bring back any specific memories.

However, the book itself still had that awesome book smell from the 70's that you don't get anymore.

Sarah loaned me this book after we discussed Seth Godin's other book: Meatball Sundae. I have read only about halfway in this book, mostly when I have a few minutes to spare and need another morsel. I find it inspiring and intriguing so far. I need to get my own copy and read it once, all the way through.

I also found a new favorite magazine: MORE. "Celebrating women over 40" Hey! That's me! I saw the magazine at the Barnes and Noble check out stand with Helen Mirren on the cover. I adore Helen Mirren. I found the magazine to be inspiring and informative and stylish. I just might have to subscribe...

I have been reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott sort of on and off. More off lately. But Friday night I saw her and Elizabeth Gilbert speaking together at UCLA and was so inspired and excited by the evening that I immediately picked it up again and am almost done. I'm going to recommend it to a few people.

Anne Lamott is brutally honest and mostly about herself and her life and how human she is. This is such a great lesson and reminder to me about being honest about how human I am and most importantly, to laugh at myself. I know that laughing at myself is something I'm not great at and I'm working on it. I'm inspired to work on it in my writing and blogging.

I look forward to reading Plan B when I'm done with Traveling Mercies and then to re read Bird by Bird. I'm also curious about Operating Instructions, but that will come later.

Last night I finished reading my Library book, The Dirt On Clean. I did enjoy it very much for all its historical information. I find myself so curious about how people lived without all of our "modern day conveniences" and what life would have been like. Reading the book even gave me a better perspective while watching John Adams. While JA is in France, I imagined the gamut of smells that existed then -- perfume, powders, sweat, bad breath. Yowza. Of course, that is how everyone smelled, so it would have been "normal" for them all. As a time traveler, I would have to prepare myself not to be shocked...

I am still in line for the other two library books (Meatball Sundae and What Shamu Taught Me) and added a third today: Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews. I love Julie Andrews. I remember when The Sound of Music would come on TV every year I would clear my schedule (okay, I was like 10, not a big calendar to clear) and plant myself in front of the tube. I look forward to reading this one very much!

What will I read while I wait? I've been through my latest Sunset Mag, Oprah and the weeklies. I have just received a new New Yorker, so I'll probably start that tonight. I'm going to Texas on Saturday, so I'll need a good easy read. Perhaps Stephen King's Cell...We'll see.

I got a message last week that The Dirt on Clean by Katherine Ashenburg is available at the Westside Branch of the LA Public Library. I accidentally checked that branch instead of the Palms-Rancho Park location when I put my request in online. I have until Saturday to pick it up so I think tomorrow is the day. I've been sick and staying close to home this week. Sniff sniff. I'm looking forward to this book.

While we were on our trip to Texas last week I read Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert, a book that I believe Debra loaned to me a while back. I like Elizabeth Gilbert's style quite a bit, but I prefer her non-fiction work. This was an interesting read, but I felt the story ended abruptly and then the epilogue wrapped things up so neatly I couldn't quite buy it. But it was something that held my attention and distracted me from all that was going on with the family. So on that level, I'm glad I had it. Thanks for the loaner, Debra.