Books badge, Part I

I completed the Books badge in 1964 when I was 11 years old.  There is no record of what I did exactly to earn the badge and I can’t quite recall.  But if I set out to earn the badge today, I wonder how I would respond to some of the requirements…

2) Read three different kinds of books: Travel, mystery, biography, adventure or history.

The only reading I have done since early summer is school-related so I am looking forward to the winter break when I have a little time to do some pleasure reading.

Last weekend, I was able to catch Mary Gabriel on BookTV.  Her new book, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution sounds fascinating but she’s written two others that are equally intriguing:

The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of the Cone Sisters, Matisse’s True Discoverers  This book is about two sisters who roamed artists’ studios, building a collection that ultimately was valued at $1 billion.

Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored  Ms. Woodhull was the first woman to address the US Congress, the first to run for President and the first to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street.  Mirabella calls it a “deftly written biography…of a hell-raising visionary.”

So let’s see…if I read any of the three, I’d have biography and history covered.

I could probably make the case that 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, both by Charles C. Mann, fall into the travel category.  Or Sarah Vowell’s new book on Hawaii called Unfamiliar Fishes. 

But maybe Sarah’s book Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World would be the one I should dive into first.  It is a collection of stories similar to those she shared on This American Life.  It would probably make me laugh, which is exactly what I need right now.  Category? Biography and adventure – with a bit of mystery thrown in. 

Too many books, too little time.