winter reading

With winter already upon us, I've been spending considerably more time doing two important things: sleeping and reading. Okay, so I've been thinking about wanting to read, but I've been reading too.

I haven't had the urge to uke a lot lately despite my ukulele crush having released a new book on Blues ukulele. I bought it, saved it all onto my flash drive and there it sits...waiting for me to get my shit together.

Back to reading, though...

I've been obsessing over Indian (sub-continental as opposed to native American) legends and iconography lately. I bought two shirts from the local Indian store with beautiful colorful pictures on them. I've put half-a-dozen books on hold at the library including the Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads...I purchased a very readable Ramayana (though not as pretty and lyrical). I'm just about done with the Ramayana. I haven't even started the others.

I've also been trying to force myself into reading some Young Adult novels. As a long-time reader of solely non-fiction, this is tough for me. I've found some adult novels that I enjoyed very much (thank you, Mr. Evelyn Waugh) but I just can't bring myself to get caught up and enjoy YA subject matter.

On the skirts of the obsession with human-monster love stories thanks to authors like Laurel K. Hamilton and Stephanie Meyer more of those types of stories are starting to emerge. I just reluctantly tried (and triumphantly failed) to read Generation Dead by Daniel Waters. It's a story about zombies--not the ones that come after your brains--living among us. Some mysterious affliction has brought American teenagers back from the dead creating a schism in the society. There are calls on one side for extreme political correctness ("living impaired" and "differently biotic" are terms to call the zombies...not the zed-word). The other side seems to feed on American History X-styled bigotry. Caught in the middle is a pale, social outcast who is compelled to befriend the zombies--in fact she falls for one.

*yawn*

The other YA book, one that I nearly read all of before I gave up, was Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. I read it because I want to see the movie. I want to see the movie because I love George Michael Blu--er, I mean Michael Cera. I gave up on the book because it really delves into the part of teenagers and people in general that I can't stand. That part of everyone where, at one-time or another, you over think things. Hearing my own inner-dialog constantly is enough for me. It wasn't enough to drive the story. It makes me afraid that the movie is going to be all voice-over. Blech-- So I decided to wait until the movie comes to video. I'll Netflix it.