Books on My Theoretical Nightstand

So it's kinda like a power outage used to be.  Can't get onto facebook for whatever reason, so I'm suddenly flush with opportunity.  Why not write a blog entry?

I'm still getting the word out about my book, The Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos, and I'm still selling copies.  It's not jumping off the shelves, but it is moving.  Met a former coworker today who said she'd get 3 copies from Amazon.  So onward goes the flow of this business...  Gonna do a book signing at Mom's house in Escalon on Nov. 10th, and another one at our house in Santa Clara on Dec. 2nd.  Should be fun.  And we're sure to have food and drinks available.

I don't really feel much else driving me to write about it.  Is this was writer's block feels like?  I could go on about the daily mundane this and that, but then, I want to attract people to this blog, not repel them.  So maybe I need to do an exercise of some sort.  It's been a long time since I did a "Journal Jar" prompt-- because I did all of the ones that I had.  Please give me a moment to produce a writer's prompt...

Oh yeah, before I go off on a wild lemur chase, I was planning on talking about the book that I got recently at the recommendation of one of my colleagues from the writing group I've been attending at Stanford.  It's called "Am I Bipolar or Waking Up?" by Sean Blackwell, and I'm itching to get started.  Yet another book to start.  Maybe I should try and finish one sometime soon.  Here's my list of recently (sort of) started but as yet to finish books:

1.  "On Writing" by Steven King
2.  "The Man Behind the Microchip" by Leslie Berlin
3.  "Finding Our Way" by Barry W. Holtz
4.  "Finding Your Bipolar Muse" by Lana R. Castle
5.  "Henry Miller on Writing," edited by Thomas H. Moore
6.  "Food Not Lawns" by H.C. Flores
7.  "Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World" by Paul Stamets

I'm sure I have more starts among my shelves, but these are the most recent ones I've tried to embark upon but haven't had the follow-through tenacity to get any of them "done."  Although, really, I read most of the actual reading material in the Stamets book, and just didn't read the field/identification guide page by page.  So maybe that one shouldn't be on this list.

 I read about two fifths of the bipolar book before I had to return it to the library.  I like it and have since purchased my own copy, but I haven't been reading much and it is just sitting there.  My mom read it, however, and really liked it-- filled it with sticky notes and bought me a new copy so she could keep it for herself, along with her notes.  My copy was used, but she bought me a new spanking one.  Brand spanking new, that is, just so there's no confusion.  It's been years since she spanked me.  At least a couple.

I've also put in some time with "Food Not Lawns," and it's been inspiring, if not daunting and overwhelming.  I would love to enlist the principles it cites and get my yards producing food for me and my family and community, instead of just sucking money from my bank account, watering a lawn that is primarily for looks only.  But, I'm handcuffed by my idealism, and my wife is not real patient with me and my half- to less-than-half- started projects.  And who can blame her?  Everything I do seems to come about out of process, and that process is ongoing.  I only try to approach mastery, I never seem to attain it.

"The Man Behind the Microchip" is a book I gave to my dad for Christmas in 2005.  It's about Robert Noyce, a man that connects my dad and I through Noyce's life and accomplishments.  My dad met Noyce as an employee at Intel in the early days of its inception.  I'm connected to Noyce because he was from Grinnell and is quite a presence at the college that I attended there.  Noyce and I are alumni.  But my dad met him, and worked for him.  Dad read the book and recommended that I read it, and even though I have wanted to, I just haven't made the time and effort to get it done.  Such is life.  Maybe as the weather changes to cooler and/or rainy I'll find myself with more time to just read.  But then again...  I guess we'll just have to see.