Keeping up on your pile of unread books while moving is, to no one’s surprise, a slow process. Lucky for me, I have a backup of Best American Nonrequired Reading anthologies, which I’ve read a few of before. Since each story is usually five to ten pages long, I was able to pick it up any time I had a spare moment along the road or between boxes of things I probably don’t need.

This time around, it’s the 2005 version.

Dave Eggers must have quite a team of kids there to be picking the stories they do. Everything from stories about secret tunnels full of Chinese people in Mexico to getting free hamburgers every day or hunting down a mythical figure who chooses to live nowhere but in airplanes and airports, eternally on the go and anchored nowhere.

Also, the nice thing about short stories is that you can find a lot of them online anyway, either for free or cheap. Instead of continuing to pretend like I know what I’m talking about, maybe the stories should speak for themselves:

• Tiger Mending, by Aimee Bender
• Lyndon, by Amber Dermont
• Tearaway Burkas and Tinplate Menorahs, by Al Franken
• Hell-Heaven, by Jhumpa Lahiri
• At the Cafe Lovely, by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
• Manifesto, by George Saunders

If you liked any of those, the whole book is great, as is the entire series.

Oh, hello there. How’s your family? I live in Nashville now. How’s that for crazy? Hopefully that whole moving-across-the-country thing is a good enough excuse for my lack of writing output. I’ll be back to it soon, I promise.

April was an exciting month, and not only due to my move. Not only did Jónsi, of Sigur Rós fame, release his first solo album, but I also got to go up to Amoeba Records in San Francisco to see him play a live acoustic set for Record Store Day a few days before my move. And the week before that, I was lucky enough to see Beach House perform to a sold-out crowd in town. A great goodbye from California, if I may say so.

The rest of the month was spent driving and visiting and driving and moving boxes and painting furniture and other such things, so the list is a bit more slim than usual. I hope you are enjoying your day as much as I’m enjoying mine.

1. Jónsi – “Go Do” (Go)
2. The Sight Below – “Splénétique” (It All Falls Apart)
3. Radiohead – “I Am A Wicked Child” (Com Lag: 2plus2isfive)
4. Wye Oak – “For Prayer” (The Knot)
5. Beach House – “Zebra” (Teen Dream)
6. Beach House – “Take Care” (Teen Dream)
7. Mimicking Birds – “The Loop” (Mimicking Birds)
8. The Tallest Man On Earth – “A Lion’s Heart” (The Wild Hunt)
9. The Hold Steady – “Slapped Actress” (Stay Positive)

And now you can listen to (most of) these tracks, because it’s just a good idea.