What to Read First?

Last weekend, my wife and I went to Portland, Oregon, for a late Mother’s Day getaway. While there, we visited the art museum, attended a play (“Uneasy Chair”) at a small theater, and of course spent a couple hours at the justly famous Powell’s bookstore.

Earlier in the week, I had compiled a lengthy list of “sale” books from the Powell’s website, after which I culled the list through online research of reviews, then made a revised “must buy” list to take with me. The upshot? I bought 20 books for just a little over $60. What a score!

Now, the inevitable (enviable?) problem: what do I read first? My haul ranged from chapter books to young adult titles, though most were middle grade level. I spent Sunday night reading first chapters, trying to decide, and finally settled on Horns and Wrinkles.

An engaging narrative voice, an immediate air of mystery and suspense, a dose or two of humor, a sympathetic main character in an interesting situation—it’s all there, and it hooked me. I would tell you more, but I need to sign off and read another chapter before I start working on my list of chores for the day….

Reading list

My present reading list contains titles such as Contemporary Linguistics, Language Development, and How Languages are Learned. Pretty exciting stuff if you're a Noam Chomsky or B.F. Skinner fan.

But I did just buy a book that's not on my assigned reading list. It's called haiku mind, and in glancing at it I see haikus by Jorge Luis Borges and Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's haiku is quite lovely:

The taste

of rain

- Why kneel?

The simplicity of the haikus and commentary is refreshing amd relaxing. And the best part is that I can read it without having to worry about being tested on the key points!