Books I WIll Be Reading

The Rickford Files

I’m a big reader. I tend to go for contemporary fiction, genre fiction (crime, horror, gay), 19th/20th Century history, memoirs and bios, and many others. I find books I want to read by reading about books I want to read and sometimes I just browse. I was in the Barnes & Noble on Union Square recently and came across a book of Ricky Powell’s photographs called ”The Rickford Files.” It was $4.95 and so much fun I just had to buy it. It totally chronicles the NYC I remember from about 1982-1989. This was before rap hit big and before the lower east side was all gentrified. It was fun when there were still some sketchy neighborhoods in the city and you could actually feel cool being in them. Today everything is too Disneyfied.

Anyway, I like to read several books at once and these are a few of the books I will pick up next:

-Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942-1945-Brian Mcarthur (I love reading about WWII)

-I Am Not Myself These Days-Josh Kilmer-Purcell (I am mostly interested in this because I think we know a lot of the same people in the 80s and early 90s)

-In Her Shoes-Jennifer Weiner (I’m not usually big on Chick-Lit but I liked this movie and sometimes reading a book after seeing the movie can be fun)

-Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art-Phoebe Hoban