Yep. I confess, I am reading in the car.

Before you go off on a rant about texting and driving, I’m reading courtesy of Audible, and it’s part of a sort-of New Year’s resolution to make better use of my commute time – about 45 minutes each way, usually 4 days a week. While listening to Texas Red Dirt music is awesome, I probably could be doing something more, hmm, valuable? useful? meaningful? with my time. Although sometimes you just gotta listen to some Wade Bowen…

I just finished my third book. I’ve enjoyed all three, and they have been VERY different “reads” (listens?)

I started out with “Gaining Ground” by Forrest Pritchard. This is a story about a young college-educated man who decides, post-college, since nothing else is really
sparking his interest, to save the family farm. It’s a story of fumbling and bumbling his way into figuring out how to make a living running the farm, raising grassfed animals, and the adventures and challenges around it. This book was of initial interest to me as we are exploring the marketing of our grassfed beef as well as fumbling and bumbling our way around running a ranch.

It’s a fascinating book, at times a bit prosy (he was an English major), but his anecdotes are amusing and his lessons often transcend farming. I’m not sure I could have actually “read” this book, but listening to it was a delight and I was sad to hear it end.

The next book was “Wives of Los Alamos” by TaraShea Nesbit, an oddly told story about the women who followed their husbands to that bastion in New Mexico where the A-Bomb was being designed and built during WW2. I was interested in this book because of my mom, and her experiences as a girlfriend and wife during WW2. This book is told in an odd first person plural voice – “we” – and is full of juxtapositions: some of us were this, some of us were that. Still, it painted the picture of life in the rarefied air of this carefully guarded compound. An interesting glimpse of this life, and the transition both in and out of it. This book also reminded me that I really do want to write a book about my mom’s experiences as documented in her letters.

I just finished “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. This is a lovely book, wherein Gilbert (who also narrated the book) tells the story of several years of her life, specifically the year she spent in Italy, India and Indonesia which locations parallel the Eat, Pray, Love title. There’s a lot of philosophy, yoga, spirituality, and self-exploration here, along with some lovely and often funny stories of her experiences, along with some poignant backstory. Her self-deprecating style keeps this from being preachy, and I totally loved the book. I really want to watch the movie (with Julia Roberts) but think I’ll spare The Tinker from a clear chick flick evening.

I’ll update you after I finish the next tome. In the meantime, I feel like I really am doing something worthwhile with all that commute time, and wonderfully, it also makes the time fly!.