Seasonal Illiteracy, Part 1

My reading concentration has been feeble lately, for one reason and another. I've been flitting from book to book, finishing little or nothing; unable to engage the unfamiliar, re-reading instead; collapsing into essay collections. The congregation on my nightstand is eclectic:

• Orwell: A Biography - a children's volume, shelved in the adult section of the library. I've always had a mild brain crush on this guy.
  
  
• The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) - I always thought this was the one Fitzgerald novel I didn't loathe - I adore his short fiction - but I don't think I'm in the right mood at all for that sort of re-read.
  
  
• Girl Meets God (Lauren Winner) - I love this woman. I love any book that includes observations like, "There are no great movies about Jewish trees."
  
  
• At The Corner of East and Now (Frederica Mathewes-Green) - I love this woman, too. The first chapter includes the stories of her hippie-Hindu wedding and, many years and life turns later, of her husband, now an Orthodox priest, driving to a north Virginia feed store, dressed in his cassock, to buy a horse trough in which to perform immersion baptisms.
  
  
• Edgar Allen Poe: Collected Stories
  
  
• Please Understand Me (Kiersey) - for a review inspired by this conversation, of course.
  
  
• Understanding the Enneagram (Riso and Hudson) - ditto.
  
  
• The Young Learner's Bible Storybook - Something I often give at baby showers. The only Bible storybook I know of that includes the story of Jeremiah in the well. Actually, it's a very cool book - really an educational activity book, using very well told Bible stories as carriers for exercises in counting and colors. But I don't know why there's a copy by my bed.
  
  
• Dr. Zhivago (Pasternak) - I finished this last year. I should put it away.
  
  
• The World of Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse) - Is there anything to be said about Wodehouse?
  
  
• In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) - I haven't even started it, but it's been sitting there for a long time.
  
  
• How to Pray (R.A. Torrey) - I promise, I didn't forget how.
  
  
• Collected Stories of Arthur Miller -an impulse purchase. Also a happy shade of yellow.
  
  
• The Curtain - An Essay in Seven Parts (Milan Kundera) - recruited to be carried downtown recently, almost exclusively on the basis of its portability. But Kundera is another brain crush candidate.

More later.