Reading

I've been reading Yoga Journal Magazine and a new-to-me one, "Spirituality & Health," and trying to get back into that space where I feel calm, centered, and in charge, because right now I don't feel like I'm in charge at all. I'm struggling, and feel like I'm searching for something that is out of my reach, and I can't quite focus on what it is.

I've been writing down affirmations and goals, and journaling, and things felt better for a couple of weeks, but I'm down again. I probably need to have my meds adjusted. :)

The current issue of Spirituality & Health contains an interview with Anne Lamott, who I adore.

I don't buy a lot of magazines anymore, but I do have several subscriptions (Yoga Journal, Spirituality & Health, Whole Living, and More) through the Zinio iPad app, plus a few single issues of knitting magazines. I also have a subscription to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine through Amazon. I have stopped all of my paper magazine subscriptions, and I don't think I've bought one actual (paper) book since I started reading on the Kindle (which I have since sold to my sister) or the iPadi/Phone.

I was reading on my iPad in bed last night, and Bob came in and asked me, "what mystery are you reading?" I guess he thinks I always read mysteries, and that probably is my genre of choice, although lately it's more urban fantasy than anything else. I said it was about vampires, and he said, "oh, that's a great thing to be reading about when you're getting ready to go to sleep." I said, no, it wasn't that kind of vampires.

I'm reading Bad to the Bone, the second in Jeri Smith-Ready's "WVMP" series. It's about a radio station (Bob: "Vampire DJ's?" Me: "Yes.") where the vampires work; this this world vampires are basically stuck in the decade where they lived/died, i.e., there is one from th3 40's, one from the 50's, etc., up to an indie/grunge DJ who died in the 90's and plays a lot of Kurt Cobain.

I was thinking this morning that although I read all the time, Bob and I don't really talk about it. I remember a few days ago, something came up about time travel. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I brought up the Company books by Kage Baker, where you can go back in time, but not forward. So the time travelers are cyborgs that are sent back in time, sometimes as far back as caveman days, and then "live forward."

Other time travel books I like are by Connie Willis, one of my favorite authors. She writes about a group of university historians in England who travel back to study various historical events such as the Black Plague (Doomsday Book) or the Second World War (Black Out and All Clear). I don't read much (any) historical fiction, but I like hers. Right now I'm listening to the audio book version of Shadow of Night, the second in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness (the first one was A Discovery of Witches. Frankly, I'm struggling through it a little bit, and the only reason I'm listening to it, really, is that I listened to the first one and hated to just give up on it. Each of the books' audio is 24 hours long, and it seemed to take months to listen to the first one. I think I'm about a third of the way through the second one, and have paused for a little while.

I'm currently listening to Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch, also the second in a series ("Peter Grant"), this one about a London constable who discovers that he has some latent talents and is recruited to join a secret arm of Scotland Yard that deals with magical crimes. These books aren't exactly "light," but I love the narrator (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) and already read the ebook versions. I like listening to the audio of books that I have read because I pick up a lot of details that I missed when I read them. I don't like to listen too soon after I've read them, but a few months gives me enough space that I'm still a little bit surprised.