First, What are You Reading? Volume 7, March 2011

Here are my answers to the four questions I ask on the first of each month:
first, what are you reading?
what do you like best about it?
what do you like least?
what's next on your list/pile to read?

I hope you'll consider sharing yours on your blog and/or sharing yours here in the comments or on Facebook.  Happy reading!

First, what are you reading?

I just finished the a group of newer graphic novels on the new book table of our local library.  The only good one is a book I reviewed yesterday, Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke.


I'm also reading Decision Points by George H.W. Bush, because I usually order from the library some, if not all, of the books that the monthly "Meet a Reader" feature is reading.  I like to keep up with what other people are reading, and last month's "Meet a Reader," Sue Wozniak, reported she was reading and enjoying it.


I'm also reading myriad books on using Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn as I prepare to live blog the Behold conference this weekend, but with a confirmation this weekend (beautiful) and sickness yet again in our house (ugly), my learning curve keeps getting sharper.  Sigh.


What do you like best about them?

I liked almost everything about Zita the Spacegirl.  It's a fun read.


Decision Points is interesting.  I'm not that far into it, but so far I've been most moved by Bush's decision to stop drinking at the age of 40, and how he has stuck with it.


What do you like least about them?


As I wrote yesterday, Zita the Space Girl would have been just fine without the Hobbit-inspired giant spider-like space creatures.


What's next on your list?


I'm on a Gary Paulsen reading binge.  I just discovered the young adult author recently, but he's written some fantastic, especially boy-friendly fiction.  I thought he had won the Newberry Medal for Hatchet, his 1987 novel about a boy alone in the Canadian wilderness--it's that good!  I'm halfway through the many-kleenex My Life in Dog Years, and we've got quite a few more in the library basket from this prolific author.


I'm also hoping to read Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand.  I know it's been out for years, but I've read several excerpts and interviews about her new book, Unbroken, and I wanted to read her first one first.  My six degrees of separation is that Hillenbrand and I both attended Kenyon College at the same time.  She's a couple of years younger than I am, so I don't remember her well.  But I well remember her energetic and super-creative sister Susan who was in my class; we were on the same floor of our all-girls freshman dormitory, back when dorms were single-sex.


I've also set aside Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales for Lent.  I hope to read this through this Lent, since my reading has been fairly prolific in recent months.  Some Lents I am not able to finish, or even start, this classic that I find spiritually fruitful.  I'm also planning to read Forget Not Love:  The Passion of Maximillian Kolbe that I bought quite a few years back at Marytown, but have never had the chance to read.  It seems appropriate for Lent.


So what are you reading?  Share away!