January.

I read so many books in January!

I am on my way out of a reading slump, so this was an encouraging month. It was also a month of significantly reduced business and an increase in solo time. Instead of wasting all of that free time watching tv and movies, I was able to channel a good deal of it into reading. Hooray.

Here is what I read:

• Burning Bright    (John Steinbeck)     -     I really enjoyed this one, I blogged about it here.

• The Climb    (Anatoli Bourkreev and G Weston DeWalt)     -     You can read about this one here. I would highly recommend this one if you are at all interested in the 1996 Everest season. I realize not many people are. 

• Into Thin Air    (Jon Krakauer)     -     I blogged about this one as well, you can read it here if you like. Jon Krakauer is a great storyteller. 

• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man    (James Joyce)     -     This one has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, years even. For some reason I was expecting it to be boring and hard to get through. It was neither of those things. I did have to learn some Irish slang. I think that if you know a bit of Irish history it would help you to get a lot more out of this book. There was a section right in the middle of the book that was a bit hard to get through, but overall it was a quite enjoyable. 

• The Call of the Wild    (Jack London)     -     How have I not ready any Jack London? I don't know. It's a classic. I also don't know how I didn't know before I started it that this book was written from the perspective of a dog. It is interesting that Jack London writes about the North as a romantic and beautiful place. He is credited with being one of the authors that inspired Chris McCandless to go Alaska. London himself, however, spent one winter in the Yukon. He got scurvy, lost his four front teeth, and suffered some other health issues. He returned to California promptly the next spring. 

• A Streetcar Named Desire    (Tennessee Williams)     -     I don't know how I have never read this either. I guess I don't read a lot of plays. But I really enjoyed it and found it much easier to read than I was expecting. I have just always assumed reading plays would be difficult and unenjoyable unless I had seen the play first. 

It has been a good month. Here's hoping February will follow suit.