I Like: Buying old books related to my field for $.90 on amazon and having them here for when I need them.

I Dislike: How few of them I actually get around to reading cover to cover

I Like: How well all of my books fit on the big ikea shelves I bought for them.

I Dislike: How soon I will run out of room for new books. 

I Like: Breaking the spines of books and writing all over them.

I Dislike: Lending them once I’ve done them because what I write in the margins seems so personal and embarrassing. Sometimes I even write the names of friends/situations/past events that an idea reminds me of and when I stumble across them, though no less true, those scribbled comparisons make me blush.

I Like: Historical fiction about british monarchy from the 1400’s to the early 1800’s. 

I Dislike: How much like Jessica Fletcher that makes me seem

I Like: What Makes Sammy Run

I Dislike: Ayn Rand’s Anything, even though I like that one of the biggest pushes she received in her career was from the Selznick secretary I’m writing about, who liked the fiction if not the ideology behind it.

I Like: Full-on, trashy books every once in a while

I Dislike: Nicholas Spark-type books that masquerade as non-trashy when they are. I know people are prejudiced against genre fiction, but as with most types of writing, some of the people who write genre fiction are writing bad fiction. 

I Like: The first 100 pages of Moby Dick

I Dislike: That I doubt I will read much more of it at this point. Tony and Hunter and I tried to start reading it for a book club, like, two years ago. Maybe when our kids are in their 20’s, we will get together to discuss this book.