Soundtracked

Lists, Day 7: Books TBR.

Awww yeah, the TBR pile. We've all got one, whether we know what TBR stands for or not ("To Be Read", for the uninitiated). Another reason I use Goodreads (besides shaming myself into reading more)...it allows me to keep better track of books I think I'll eventually want to read, and when I'm looking for something but not sure what, now I've got a nice list to choose from.

Instead of just listing the last ten or first ten or whatever, I'm gonna cherrypick a bunch from my virtual shelf and see what happens.

1) We The Living   by Ayn Rand: Sometimes I have lunch at this place that has a little stack of old, donated paperbacks that anyone can take; I've come across a few books I've read or wanted to read in this spot before. I've never read Rand nor thought I had to, but this looks interesting enough even though it's not really my go-to genre. I just grabbed this today, but if I don't start it right away it might get shoved away for some other time.

2) , said the shotgun to the head.   by Saul Williams: I have read this bombastic collection of emotional poetry so many times, and yet it never gets old. Honest, powerful, heartbreaking, heartbuilding. A work of graphic design mastery as well...visually as well as spiritually arresting.

3) How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy   by Stephen Richard Witt: This was on the "New Arrivals" shelf at the library, and I need to read it soon because it's due back soon. Looks hella interesting, because I definitely remember the near-painless free file-sharing early days. Good times .

4) Catching Life By The Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why [With CD]   by Josephine Hart (Editor): Same thing as #3...gotta get this back to the library soon. Seriously...I saw this by coincidence maybe a few days after Elle - on hiatus launched "Poetry Readings" . I'm hoping it's got some decent tips. Plus it's got a bonus cd of some semi-famous people reading some classic work, including one of my all-time favs, T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock" (and tell me "Prufrock" wouldn't be a fresh name for an MC ).

5) The Typewriter Is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation   by Bill Morgan: I have no clue where I saw this or how it made it on my TBR pile, but I love Beat poets and that whole time. Bonus points to anything I'm remotely interested in that comes advertised with the words "Oral History" on it (which this doesn't, I don't think...just pointing out a random factoid ).

6) Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memior   by Jenny Lawson: I read her most newest book recently (see "Lists, Day 6: Books I've Read This Year." ) and like music from artists I've just found, I'm gonna go back into the catalog and read the earlier stuff.

7) Solutions And Other Problems   by Allie Brosh: Sorta the same thing as #6 here, but this book hasn't been published yet and won't be out until later this year (hopefully). Which means my library won't get it until probably the following summer (if at all ).

8) Not Dead And Not For Sale   by Scott Weiland and David Ritz: I didn't even know this existed until after he died. I hope it's better than Neil Young's last book (what a fucking joke that was...I do not recommend reading Waging Heavy Peace under any circumstances).

9) Home is Fucking Burning   by Dan Marshall: Never heard of this guy, but it was also on the "New Arrivals" shelf in the Cortland Library recently and it looks hilarious (for it containing somewhat unfortunate subject material). I probably would've read this the day it arrived had I still worked in a bookstore...I miss those days.

10) Rickshaw   by David McGrath: Goodreads sometimes does giveaways, which I think is how I saw this title. I get an email every now and then saying a book I was interested in is back in the sweepstakes or whatever...I wonder if this one is it. Huh. Maybe I shouldn't ignore those emails .

11) The Silver Linings Playbook   by Matthew Quick: Recommended by a friend who thought maybe I was going through something similar. I actually have not seen the movie, nor am I all that interested in it until I read the book...which I did have out from the library but had to return before I had time to get past the first couple pages unfortunately.

12) Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña   by David Hajdu: I'm guessing I saw this in the library too, because I have no clue how this showed up in my pile or from where. Must've been interesting enough at the time.

13) The Bassoon King   by Rainn Wilson: Ladies and gentlemen, Dwight Schrute everybody.

Sounds like a good enough spot to wrap this up. Good christ, I'd be here all day trying to figure out everything else I wanna read that isn't documented somewhere. I'm that dude who takes his tablet to the library once in awhile, logs into the the public wifi, and starts scanning ISBNs directly into Goodreads because books...why not.