April 23, 2016, Saturday afternoon -- Reading Alysia Abbot

In the Mission District

She is reading Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott. It's about a girl whose mother dies when she is two and she moves to San Francisco with her father who is bisexual and becomes a member of the amazing cultural scene that San Francisco was in the 70s and 80s. This book was recommended to her by a friend.

Her favorite author is Rebecca Solnit. The first book of Solnit's that she read was The Faraway Nearby. Then she read Wanderlust:A History of Walking and A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Something else good she's read recently is Between You & Me, by Mary Norris.

April 16, 2016, Saturday evening -- Reading the American Heritage Dictionary

In the Mission District

He is reading the American Heritage Dictionary. Why? He's trying to figure out how long it takes for chicken eggs to hatch. Also, showing me another page with a diagram of a rose, he said he wants to know how long it takes for a flower to bloom. He estimates 1 - 2 months for a flower and 2 weeks for chicken eggs.

I asked him if he has a favorite book or author and he said no, that he just likes to read the dictionary. (He had two more dictionaries at his feet.) It seemed that he was doing more than reading, though, that he was using the dictionary as a jumping off point for inspiration. Like any book, a dictionary can be a conversation between the author and the reader, if you're creative.

April 1, 2016, Friday afternoon -- Reading C.S. Lewis

In the Mission District

She is reading The Silver Chair, the 6th book in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I was excited to see her reading this because two weeks ago, when I was at the Asilomar Conference Center, I found The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the 1st book in the series, on a bookshelf in the lounge room, and read it again for the first time as an adult. He is really a brilliant story teller.

I asked her, What's your favorite book? and she was suspicious. Why do you want to know? she asked me. No one has ever asked me that before. Like with my other interviews with readers, I had already explained that I have a blog where I post my pictures, so her question was, really, why would the readers of my blog want to know. I didn't really have an answer to that, except that, by association, this blog can help readers know what books "travel together." If I like ____, I might also like ____ because this reader likes both. In the end, she didn't have an answer about her favorite book, but said that this, the one she was holding, was really good.

March 31, 2016, Thursday afternoon -- Reading Kevin Trudeau

On a sunny Thursday afternoon

She is reading More Natural "Cures" Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products that Cure Disease. She told me that natural doctors have been murdered, possibly by pharmaceutical industry. This is not why she's reading this book though. She's just interested in natural medicine.

Her favorite book - she says she has many and it's hard to say which one, but possibly Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt.