I do a lot of reading. The picture here is me peaking out of the pile of some 80 books that I’ve read in the last 18 months. Actually, I’ve read more than that. Some I’ve filed already (once blogged about, they’re shelved) and others I’ve loaned to friends (who know they have to give them back, right?).

It will surprise no one who knows me that I have opinions about what I read (or about anything else). But it really surprised Husband last week when I said of a book of essays that it was “too much like a blog”. What’s so bad about being like a blog? he asked. Nothing, in theory.

The book is Lisa Kogan’s book of essays Someone Will Be With You Shortly, and if you’ve read O Magazine, you’ve seen her essays about life, love and being a semi-single parent. They’re chatty and entertaining. But I want my books to be more than my magazines. It doesn’t mean they have to be formal or stilted. I loved all three of Chelsea Handler’s books and they are everything that formal isn’t. There’s a great memoir recently republished called Possum Living by Dolly Freed, chronicling her years in the 1970s living off the grid with her dad. Very relaxed in tone — as was her life and the time in which it takes place. But it’s still more than most essay-based blogs. There’s a unity to the chapters, although there isn’t a narrative line. The recent book on marriage and family by Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up is another example. It has more of a narrative arc to it, but the individual chapters in both the latter two books could also stand alone.

Maybe that’s why the Lisa Kogan book got to me: its chapters were too able to stand alone. Each chapter relates to her life; there are stories and recurring characters. But it just seemed so casual. Funny thing, though: I like a casual tone. I write in a casual tone even when I’m writing arcane healthcare articles. Don’t believe me? Check out my portfolio. Find something medical from a newsletter you’ve never heard of. My writing is casual and conversational in tone. I like reading books that sound like people talk. I actually get ticked off when people write like they have the thesaurus next to them, or worse, when they find some $10 word like eleemosynary, which means charitable, and repeat it more than once in a book. I’ll start counting.

That doesn’t mean I don’t like Literature with a capital L. I do. Jane Austen rocks my world. I read at least one of her books annually. Big fat hard book I loved: Isaac Singer’s Shadows on the Hudson But there are books written by real writers that get my goat. Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi was an interesting book that made me feel stupid. Often. And I’m not. I’m educated, literate, and hate to be made to feel dumb if I’m not trying to understand derivatives or billing and coding practices of neurology practices.

And the last topic? It makes me feel so dumb that I not only don’t read about it any more, I don’t even write about it.

Again, Lisa Kogan, I love your writing. I think you’d make a cool friend. And if you’re ever in the upper left hand corner of the country, I’ll buy you a microbrew because you’re looking a little thin and could use the calories. But from someone as talented as you are, I want more from a book. Especially since I buy them full price, hardcover, and first edition.*

*And if you think that makes me dumb, watch for a future post on my book buying habits and why they’re unlikely to change.