Current Book Pile

I've been on a reading tear lately, for a bunch of reasons.

• I finished my novel, so I have a little more time.
  
• I finished my novel, so I need some time to recharge. Reading helps.
  
• I finished a draft of my full-length play (for now), so my second big project is done.
• I'm looking for an agent, so I'm reading books represented by people who might be good agents for me, or I look up agents, and then see a book that sounds good, so I request it from the library. Or I go to the bookstore, to see what's out there, and see stuff that looks good, so I bring it home.

Here is a picture of my current nightstand pile. A little scary (it's actually living mostly on my desk at the moment). Usually, I'm lucky if I can read 24 books in a year, but I've already read 9 so far this year.

In my pile, I have:

• House & Home by Kathleen McCleary (strong similarities to my new one, but different enough that I'm not depressed)
• Busted Flush by Brad Smith (this is cheating, I actually just finished it last night. Very fun book.)
• A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb (sounds like Kira will like this one, too)
• Mina by Jonatha Ceely (written by a friend who lives here in Brookline)
• How to Live Well Without Owning a Car by Chris Balish (I've read it before, but I wanted to doublecheck)
• Banishing Verona by Margot Livesey
• No one belongs here more than you, stories by Miranda July (I liked her movie, and she has a really cool web site to promote the book).
• Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby (Nick Hornby is my very favorite writer, but I'm forcing myself not to read this right away, which is proving hard.)
• The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue (I saw her web site and it looked cool)
• Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan (he's a friend of a friend and an Amazing writer.)
• A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing (Blessing, Corthron, and Svich are going to be at a staged reading in Baltimore next weekend--all four of us are having short plays read--so I thought I'd try to read some of their work first. Not to be a big suck up, but so we can have a conversation. Maybe to be a little bit of a suck up.)
  
• Breath, Boom by Kia Corthron
• Any Place But Here by Caridad Svich
• Lee Blessing, Four Plays
• The Winning Streak by Lee Blessing
• All Hat by Brad Smith

That's it. Could keep me busy for a while.