Bookworm

About a year ago, I decided to make the switch to an e-reader. I was one of those people who argued on behalf of a Book, that tangible, comforting, dusty-aroma-ed volume you could thumb through in search of a half-remembered line that gave you pause on first read. And then I had a baby. My decision to breastfeed provided me with an unexpected benefit of time to read. Curled up with the lil' Fox for long stretches of the day, I realized I really wanted to be able to read one-handed, and to have my choice of books quickly available. This change in thinking is rather in line with my growing detachment from other material possessions. It would be disingenuous to claim a genuinely anti-materialist dogma, as I do enjoy many comforts and luxuries in my life. A more accurate description would be a relaxing of my grip on the significance of the material of things. Since the start of last year, I've read quite a few good books and have been eager to catalogue them to aid my own remembrance.

A list.  

Nonfiction:  
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn 
Lie My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (still in the middle of this one)  
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier  
Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom  
Classic Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay (still working my way through this in spurts)  
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan  
The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child by Alan Kazdin 
The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel by Erik Larson  
My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus by Nancy Tringali Piho  
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein  

Fiction:  
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong  
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett  
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon  
On Beauty by Zadie Smith  
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire  
Saturday by Ian McEwan  

Drama:  
The Clean House and Other Plays by Sarah Ruhl 

I also read a handful of actual, physical books, including a lot of Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask): The Secrets to Surviving Your Child's Sexual Development by Justin Richardson and Mark Schustermost, On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, and most of The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It by Meenakshi Gigi Durham. 

Assessment:
I'm grateful to have had so much time to read this past year (though conflicted on having little time for anything else).  I feel I should balance out my nonfiction reading with more literature.  Also, I should really make an effort to find more drama in digital form.