Self portrait

Snappyfriends photo assignment for this week was a self portrait. So I chose my bookshelves to represent me. I am a reader. I read books. I read book reviews, I read about books. There is never a moment when a book is not nearby, even if I'm going to a baseball game, I have a book with me. Just in case. In case I have a moment or several or I have to wait for a train to go by or the baseball game goes into extra innings or I find myself with 15 minutes. Or less. Some of you have crochet hooks and a ball of yarn in your pocket for these moments. I have a book. This pile represents my taste in fiction, my love of photographers Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Jacob Riis, my cooking style, my quilting life. It's a mere sampling. There are many, many hundreds of books in this house but this is a quick sample.

And this is just one small section of shelf! So - as I wondered and wandered this past weekend looking for something to show myself, I realized I was looking at it all along.
Just today I finished reading A Reliable Wife by Goolrick. As I browsed the shelf for the next (there is a very large pile waiting to be read) I chose Day After Night by Anita Diamant. I got that one at the library sale, in a hardcover pristine condition (not library processed), for $3.00! I just purchased The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins. This summer I'll also re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn since I haven't read it since I was a child. Waiting also for this summer is Little Bee by Chris Cleave and these for school for next fall: Darby by Fuqua, Truth About Sparrows by Hale, A Nest for Celeste by Cole and Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Cushman ( I love Karen Cushman's books). Always open and ready for a quick pickup spot read: A Homemade Life by Wizenberg. Wonderful book!
I'm struggling through The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. It's disturbing and I need to put it down and go with something else sometimes, though I never, ever do that. I read one book at a time, and I give a book 50 pages to grab me. If it isn't to my liking by then I need a really good reason to continue. Life is short and I don't have that much time left to be stuck struggling through something I don't like. There are too many waiting in the wings.
That is a sampling of what I PLAN to accomplish this summer....in between quilting. I did start on Christine yesterday and find training myself to use a floor frame awkward. The back porch was bright and sunny so I worked on the Sunbonnet Sue for my soon to be grand-daughter while listening to Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry on audio book.
OH! I DO love audio books. And I listen to very different books than I read. I don't read mysteries but listen to them. I don't listen to heavy books, but lighter ones because I'm usually driving or painting a room or canning tomatoes or quilting or.....while listening. Though while painting the attic this spring I did listen to Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna and enjoyed it.
So. That's my self portrait. What would yours be?