randwolf

Wherein I manage to answer every question with a No, I don't have one of these, but how about this tangentially related answer? (Via sovay and osprey_archer)

1. Lust, books I want to read for their cover.

There aren't any of these right now, but back when I was a kid, I picked up Patricia McKillup's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld because of this cover. I loved the evening sunset glow of it, very Maxfield Parrish-esque.

2. Pride, challenging books I finished.

When we're talking about reading for pleasure, I'm pretty much of a quitter when the going gets tough, so I can't really say there are any of these. Maybe reading the Portuguese version of Ideas to Postpone the End of the World (Ideias para apiar o fim do mundo), but see, then it's not entirely pleasure reading; it's partly language practice. And it's a very short book, so...

There are books that have lingered in my currently-reading pile pretty much untouched, and it's not that they're super challenging, they just take more commitment than I can often muster, e.g., Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons, which I want to read for the information, and it's engagingly written, just .... for pleasure I'd rather read other stuff.

3. Gluttony, books I've read more than once.

I did this a LOT as a kid, but I haven't as an adult (except for, e.g., reading childhood faves to my own kids). Instead what I do is reread particular sections or passages that I love, but honestly, I don't even do that very often; mostly it happens when I want to share something with someone. This happened recently with Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, for example.

4. Sloth, books that have been longest on my to-read list.

I put things on my to-read list with thoughtless abandon; I don't even know what-all is on my list, and often they're things I'm only vaguely curious about. A bigger sign of sloth is the books I start and don't finish, like Governing the Commons, noted above. Or Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, which I think is beautiful in its moment-by-moment observations (some of which jump vividly to mind when I type this), but which, overall, I have a terrible time sitting down to read.

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

I only own multiple editions of stuff I used when I was teaching in the jail, and I've been thinning those out (but e.g., I had multiple editions of Esmeralda Santiago's When I was Puerto Rican).

6. Wrath, books I despised.

Books I take a deep hate to I generally don't finish, but there are books that ticked me off mightily in some aspect or other, even if I didn't overall despise them. The focus on the technology of writing as a sign of cultural advancement that was present in Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea annoyed me big time, though there were other elements in the book that I thought were very cool, very thoughtful. I have an outsized, probably unfair dislike of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers, very it's-not-you-it's-me thing (except that the dislike is large enough that I find myself whispering, But maybe it's a little bit you, actually)

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

I don't want to live in any books right now.

As a kid, I tried to get to lots of fantasy lands (the ol' walk-into-a-closet thing, because as an American kid I didn't even properly know what a wardrobe was: in our house, winter coats were in a closet), and I played that I was part of lots of others. But probably the ones I wanted to live in most were Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Greensky books. I wanted to glide from bough to bough of giant trees with the aid of a shuba and low gravity, have a life full of songs and dancing to defuse personal tensions, not to mention psychic powers and an overall jungle environment.

I added two new books to my reading mix: Breath Warmth & Dream, by Zig Zag Claybourne. I enjoy the author's social media posts (when I happen to see them, which isn't that often), and he and C.S.E. Cooney are big mutual fans. So I decided to try something of his, and so far, I'm enjoying it. It's told in a leisurely way, and I like the characters. Here, Khumalo, a powerful witch who's waiting for her daughter to return from a sea journey, talks with a beggar woman at the harbor:

“You’re so tall,” Orsys remarked.

“Do you like that?” Khumalo said kindly.

“I do.” When Orsys smiled, every wrinkle on her sun-bleached face moved like sudden lightning flashes, brightening the old woman’s visage immeasurably.

“How many people have come off ships hoping to see your smile, dear one?” said Khumalo.

I'm reading this as an ebook, which means the other ebook I've been reading, The Apothecary Diaries, is taking a temporary back seat.

Then there's also Butter, by Asako Yuzuki. I was intrigued by osprey_archer's review, but it's not a book I'd pick up for pleasure. However, it **is** the sort of book I'd read in my book group, and I had to pick the next book, so I've picked it. Only in the beginning pages, but enjoying it so far.

Neruda's Book of Questions isn't the sort of thing I read cover-to-cover; I prefer to dip in. How will I know when I'm done, though? What if there are ones I keep on missing? A Problem.

As I dip into it just now to find something to share, I'm coming across ones I *don't* like: they're opaque to me, or the images or juxtapositions don't speak to me.

But I like the bottom half of one:

Why do [waves] strike the rock
with so much wasted passion?

Don't they get tired of repeating their declaration to the sand?

And I like the whole of this one:

You don't believe that dromedaries
keep moonlight in their humps?

Don't they sow it in the desert
with secret persistence?

And hasn't the sea been lent
for a brief time to the earth?

Won't we have to give it back
with its tides to the moon?

He uses questions in the negative a lot.