Reading List.

Good Morning Reader,

         It's so beautiful out today. Spring has moved itself on in for these last few days, and it's been wonderful for adventuring around these parts. Of course, this being New England, I'm sure winter has not had its final say in this, the argument of seasons. I woke up with excitement to say hello to you reader, there must be something about you that I can't quite shake.
         I wanted to ask if you've been reading anything good lately? I thought about making my list for 2017 as my typical motivation to read has been "I'd like to read XYZ so I'm going to do it." My library is stacked to the brim and it sometimes feels overwhelming, especially when I make all these grandiose plans to "revisit old books," you know, shit you read in high school that you never enjoy because it's been forced upon you. Or just revisiting old books because you have changed so much and so your perception and interpretation has (hopefully) evolved.
         Anyways my my 2016 reading list was sparse, and I hate that because when you reflect on your past year, sometimes all you see are the opportunities you wasted, or how you kept putting off the things you enjoyed in order to appease some unrelenting force (or at least, that's what you convinced the thing to be.) Anyways, I didn't read as much as I'd like to last year and I'm going to change that. Good writers read. There's really no disputing that. This was my list last year:
         A Dance With Dragons (reread) -- George RR. Martin
         Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (reread) -- Lewis Carroll
         The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (reread)-- J.R.R. Tolkien
         MacBeth--William Shakespeare
         A Wrinkle in Time--Madeleine L'engle
         Animal Farm-- George Orwell
         1984--George Orwell
         Of Mice and Men-- John Steinbeck
       
         Okay so writing that out I'm not totally ashamed of the list. I guess the year is much longer than we give it credit. I remember being in a park on or near 110th street on the west side of Harlem reading the Lord of the Rings late last Spring on one of my days off ; beautiful. And I remember sitting on my porch before the maple-covered hills in North Adams this Fall reading 1984. That type of literary-induced paranoia was not fun coupled with the 2016 election which attempted to consume our very souls. There is one more book I didn't put on the list because I never got to finish it: The Epic of Gilgamesh. I bought it off a street vendor in Williamsburg for $3. On one of my desperately drunken evenings (around 3:30 in the morning) returning from the bar still in my work uniform. I fell asleep on the A Train. At my transfer stop, Broadway Junction, I awoke in a sudden panic like a homeless man being sprayed with a hose. I bounded for the door and made it off the car just in time...without my bag. So I lost my copy of Gilgamesh that night. along with my phone charger, a pair of shoes and (most importantly) my journal of which I had been tirelessly entering ideas, drawings and outlines into for more than a year. That was a bad night. But yeah, books.  
         So far this year I've completed only 1 book entitled: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. I highly recommend it for any artist worried about toeing the line between inspiration and plagiarism. If it's any indication, the book exposed one of my all-time favorite quotes (and possibly my next tattoo) from Pablo Picasso, that is "Art is Theft." How blunt. So that should give you some idea of how the book views the creative process.
         I also began War and Peace. Admittedly, I was slogging through it and decided to stop. Not because Tolstoy isn't a thrilling, eloquent writer, he very much is... I just don't think I'm ready for it. Luckily The book is divided into SOO many chapters and sections and parts, so after "Part 1" on page a-million-and-something, I gave it a rest and will eventually return to it someday. That's how my mind works, I have lots of bookmarks in lots of books at the moment-- maybe that shows a lack of commitment, maybe that shows a lack of attention. But f@ck that, there are no rules to enjoying literature, so I will see Pierre Beznukhov, and Prince Andrey, and feisty little Natasha at a later time.
         Today I told myself I wouldn't do any writing or editing, but now after this post I am electrified to do some editing on my novel, isn't that always the way. Maybe I'll tell myself I'm not going to do any writing everyday! Maybe the very idea that I'm not allowed to do something will propel me into the doing it. (isn't that how they study toddler behaviors? Yeah that makes sense, I'm a toddler more often than not.)
         Well, dear reader, now that It's almost noon, I'm going to get to editing and then for the weekend I've decided to read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome I figure there is no place better suited for it, as I can take a ten minute drive to her house if I want. I'll let you know my thoughts.

  Enjoy the Day.

-CjM