Eileen R. Tabios is a poet working in multiple genres and in-between. She also loves books by writing, reading, publishing, critiquing, romancing and advocating for them. This blog will feature her bibliophilic activities with posts on current book engagements and links to her books and projects related to books.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

SNAPSHOT OF A POET (#9): “WHAT ARE YOU READING?”

[Poets are invited to participate in this series of snapshots of poets’ reading habits. For information, go HERE.] 


Michael Helsem on Reading 

What are you reading now? As well, what is in your To-Read-Soon stack? Please share comments about your readings:

I always am reading about 4 books at once; I keep 2 at work & read 1/2 hr each during lunch & 2 more at home next to the bed where I may or may not pick one up at night.

Not seldom I'll be reading a book I thought I should read but another more interesting comes along & interrupts it.

For instance at home I was reading Desert by LeClezio (slow going) & City of Bohane by Barry (which I had just started) when I found Throne of the Crescent Moon by Ahmed at a nearby store in our chain (I'd been looking for)  & I was given Available Dark by Hand (off my wish list) from my wife for our anniversary. (I expect to whoosh through this one & then resume Crescent Moon.)

Underneath those is Bill Knott's Collected Poems (the 2012 edition) & a loose volume of a bad Elizabethan translation of Orlando Furioso in an early 19c edition.

Michael Helsem with 1805 ed. of Hoole's ORLANDO FURIOSO vol. V.

At work I am reading a tribute to Jack Vance, Songs of the Dying Earth (or at least the stories in it by certain authors--including Elizabeth Hand, whom I consider one of the best contemporary authors--& I just finished one in it by Lucius Shepard, who recently died) & also The God Effect by Clegg (which I only mean to read the update about the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox). on my stash shelf there's also a book on making Youtube videos & a travel guide to Austin, probably three others I don't remember at the moment. oh: The Loom of God by Pickover (I decided to look at instead of donate, as it hadn't sold at a dollar) is another one.

I am thinking of going back to  pull Garfinkle's Celestial Matters just to see what a Ptolemaic scifi novel is like.

I am wanting to read the new Ligotti which isn't out till next month; likewise the re-issue of Eddison's translation of Egil's Saga. I doubt I will be able to afford them new.




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