Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Why Is My Nightstand So Crowded?

It's Friday, so it's time to play another round of Why Is My Nightstand So Crowded?

Yes, it doesn't look so crowded after I took my laptop off the nightstand.

Big book stack, top to bottom:
Bible
Madame Bovary
Elisabeth Leseur: Selected Writings
The Way: The Essential Classic of Opus Dei's Founder
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
North and South
The Secret Garden
A wrapped birthday book, not to be opened until Dec. 5

Small book stack, top to bottom:
The Liturgy of the Hours book my Dad gave me when I went to college
A photo album from which all the photos have been removed and replaced with index cards the girls have illustrated

A book of paint cards from Farrow and Ball

A single pearl earring, the remnant of a pair

Behind the paint book:
earbuds
my nice rosary, in two pieces
a matchbox car
another pearl earring, from a different pair, now too bent to wear (I love pearl earrings and I have such bad luck with them)
a ponytail holder

This pile doesn't include the two books I'm actively reading, as opposed to storing on my nightstand:
Love and Responsibility
The Phantom of the Opera

I know it's often a conversation killer to directly ask people to play along, but I'd love to know what you're reading.

6 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

On the cluttered step stool that passes for my nightstand are two Baby-sitters Clubbooks, two Il Volo CDs, Dante's Purgatorio, an A2-level abridged copy of the German Krimi novel Blutige Schatten, a notebook, my Pieta prayer booklet, a Latin Mass missal, a flashlight for reading in the dark, my essential oils collection (LOL), my brother's old iTouch that I use as an alarm clock, a rosary, a Seven Sorrows rosary bracelet, and a relic of St. Therese.

Rebekka said...

A Danish book about communication and conflict management with children and youth. It's not on my nightstand though. On my nightstand is: hand lotion, charger, baby monitor charger, an icon, and dust.

Anonymous said...

I'm reading Beowulf each night before bed, and for my lunch hour reading I just started The Day of the Triffids on the recommendation of a friend.

Jenny said...

On my nightstand:

Currently reading

33 Days to Morning Glory
November Magnificat
Ida Elizabeth

Piled since whenever and waiting to be read or finished

Introduction to the Devout Life
Equal Rites
Teaching from Rest
Children's Literature
Leisure: the basis of Culture
Selected Writings of Elisabeth Leseur
The Little Oratory
January 2014 Magnificat because Sam likes the picture on the front

Other accouterments

two coasters
clock radio
two lamps (only one is plugged in)
A picture of me and my husband
A picture of our first cat
A decorative box that has been unopened for so long, I no longer know
what is in it.
an ink pen
a writing pad
a bag of knitting
a giant to-do list

Melanie Bettinelli said...



On my nightstand: lamp, water glass, headphones, thermometer, chapstick, thyroid medicine, library receipt, pile of books: Stripping of the Altars, Soul of Elizabeth Seton, The Song at the Scaffold, Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett, the latter two I'm not currently reading.

I am currently reading Arriving at Amen by Leah Libresco, on my Kindle; Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay; The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy; The Soul of Elizabeth Seton; Pioneer Girl.

The Opinionated Homeschooler said...

Just finished reading John Henry Faulk: Fear on Trial. This is the Faulk after whom the central Austin public library was named; a Keillor-esque radio personality whose career was destroyed by blacklisting in the '50s. His account has frighteningly modern resonances: most of the blacklisting damage was done not by HUAC but by private groups organizing mass letter-writing campaigns and boycotts to pressure sponsors to get people fired. Like twitter mobs, only slightly slower. There are the same sorts of defenses: it's people's right to boycott; sure you have a right to your political opinion, but not a right to your job; he wasn't fired for his politics but because his employers rightly didn't want to have their public face be someone like that.

Now beginning The Good Soldier Ċ veijk: a Great War-era Romanian book.