favorite thing of the week: new additions to my bookshelf

I refuse to buy a kindle and I refuse to download any books onto my iPad. I love the feeling of holding a book in my hand, flipping actual pages, and highlighting passages that strike my fancy. I also have a life goal of having a sizable mahogany wood library in my future house and thus need to work on my collection. this week I added two books to my collection and they have totally captivated me: "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" by Mindy Kaling.

isaacson's steve jobs biography is absolutely fascinating. what has fascinated me the most was steve's attention to design and the aesthetics of all of the apple products. one of my favorite anecdotes: when he and his wife were in the market for a washer dryer for their new house it took them over two weeks to pick one out because they were so focused on function vs. aesthetics and could not determine which meant more to them.

I started reading mindy kaling's book on tuesday night and required an extra shot of espresso on wednesday morning because I could not put the book down because I was laughing so hard. its absolutely hysterical. I have always been a huge fan of mindy and love her work as a writer and actress on "the office". I almost cried from laughter when I read the chapter "I am not an athlete" and how much she hates when friends try to get her into frisbee. she writes:

unlike other athletes, frisbee people won't let it go. my theory is that this is because there's a huge overlap between people who are good at frisbee and people who do teach for america. the same instinct to make at-risk kids learn, which I admire so much, becomes deadly when turned on friends trying to relax on a sunday afternoon in the park. they feel they have to corral me into learning this useless sport. the afternoon becomes 'unlocking mindy's passion for frisbee', instead of letting me lie on the grass reading my chick lit book. how dare you? if I had thought learning frisbee was a valuable thing to do, I would've done it. I don't want to learn! I don't want to learn! let me read shopaholic runs for congress in peace."

brilliant.