I have spent the last week listening to podcasts: especially a new series from the BBC, The Gaurdian, and the New York Times (more later in Media Safe 101). Since I am not one of those people who can read and listen to music or audio documentary programs simultaneously, I create collages as well.


The collage above was inspired by various book- or author-related blogs (here, here, and here) and some book related podcasts (here, here, and here). I am still in the first flush of trying to figure out whether there is anything out there that can keep my interests. I would very much appreciate some direction here.

Don’t you love a good yarn about someone else’s travels or tales about how someone lived and survived in another era, culture, country or world foreign to your own? Especially when you can read about all their trails from the comfort of your sofa. Another list!

Voyage to Greenland, Frederica de Laguna
The Road from Coorain, Jill Ker Conway
My Old Man and the Sea, David Hays and Daniel Hays
Hindoo Holiday, J.R. Ackerley
Voyages, At Sea with Strangers, Joan Skogan
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
A New Kind of Country, Dorthy Gilman
The Ten Thousand Things, Maria Dermoût
Fishing with John, Edith Iglauer
The Curve of Time, M. Wylie Blanchet
An Anthropologist On Mars, Oliver Sacks
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich
Migrations to Solitude, Sue Halpern

This might sound strange to you, but when I am ill I can not read some books that I normally read (e.g. murder mysteries) because I often have the feeling that my mind and dreams, and in some indirect way, my body is influenced by the content of the books I read. OK, crazy, but true. So, I am always out for the look out for books to put on my “reading myself well” book list. These books have to fall under one of the following categories to be included on my list:

• Funny
• If not funny, then endearing or touching without being too heart rendering (admittedly since I am a North-American-happy-ending addict of Irish descent, married to an Italian category)
• A none existent suspense curve
• Something I’ve read at least twenty times (i.e. no surprises)
• Light and frivolous
• Wonderfully written
• No complications (translation no tragedy)
  
  Here is a list of some of the books I have had on my list for many years. Some of them have been on this list since I was a child, but I still read them when I am feeling the need. I would reallyreally like new suggestions. As you can see, as in the case of “Three Men in a Boat”, many of these books have been on the list longer than I have been alive! So, take mercy and send me a comment with any book you think would fit on the list.
  
  The list:

• Three Men in a boat, Jerome K. Jerome
• Never Cry Wold, Farley Mowat
• Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast, Bill Richardson
• Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
• The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Blue Castle, l.M. Montgomery
• Precious Bane, Mary Webb
• Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
• Dear Enemy, Jean Webster
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot
• 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
  

I was recently ill and read all the above mentioned books. It is time to branch out. Please help me extend this list.