What's On Your Nightstand (May)

I saw this on DeSeRt RoSe's blog and thought I would participate!

This is a monthly event held on the forth Tuesday of the Month by 5 Minutes for Books.
You can participate in What's on Your Nightstand? in several ways. Choose what's appealing to you:

1. Take a picture or simply give a list of the stack of books that you are in the process of reading or planning to read (it might be on your nightstand, on a bookshelf, or like me, under your bed).
2. Give short reviews of the book or books that you read that month.
3. Tell about what you are reading and why. I love to read the backstory on books. Did someone give it to you? Are you trying out a new genre at the recommendation of a friend (or website)? Did you stumble across a new author in a used bookstore?
4. Fill us in on your reading habits. When are you reading these books? Is one reserved for bedtime reading? Does one stay in your car to be read while you are waiting? Do you read just one book at a time?

This is the first time I am participating in the event so here goes..

My Cat Spit McGee by Willie Morris
From the Inside Flap:
With endearing humor and unabashed compassion, Willie Morris--a self-declared dog man and author of the classic paean to canine kind, My Dog Skip--reveals the irresistible story of his unlikely friendship with a cat. Forced to confront a lifetime of kitty-phobia when he marries a cat woman, Willie discovers that Spit McGee, a feisty kitten with one blue and one gold eye, is nothing like the foul felines that lurk in his nightmares.

For when Spit is just three weeks old he nearly dies, but is saved by Willie with a little help from Clinic Cat, which provides a blood transfusion. Spit is tied to Willie thereafter, and Willie grows devoted to a companion who won't fetch a stick, but whose wily charm and occasional crankiness conceal a fount of affection, loyalty, and a "rare and incredible intelligence." My Cat Spit McGee is one of the finest books ever written about a cat, and a moving and entertaining tribute to an enduring friendship. ~I received this book through Paperbackswap.com

House of Steps by Amy Blackmarr
From Amazon.com:
With House of Steps, Georgia-bred writer and radio commentator Amy Blackmarr stakes her literary claim to a little slice of the Plains, an old farm on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas. Her house, she writes, was "built by a flower child as the 1960s faded," and it's a ramshackle creation indeed, full of odd angles, staircases that lead to paralyzing heights (whence her title), and unmapped nooks and crannies--just the sort of place where a curious person could find plenty of ways to pass the time. In vignettes that betray their origins as radio sketches, Blackmarr recounts her days of getting to know the ways of the landscape, the passing seasons, the flora, and especially the fauna, among which prominently figure ill-tempered wasps, spiders, and field mice. Her memoir has many charms, including her meditation on the silence that accompanies a life alone in the far countryside, a life sometimes fraught with danger but more often laced with wonder. --Gregory McNamee ~I purchased this book at a Library Book Sale.

Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
From Amazon.com:
kira-kira (kee ra kee ra): glittering; shiningGlittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people's eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop on the street to stare. And it's Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering -- kira-kira -- in the future. ~ I got this book through Paperbackswap.com

I am planning on reading these books in the month of June. Spit McGee will count towards The Southern Reading Challenge, and House of Steps counts towards The Non-Fiction Five Challenge.

What's on YOUR nightstand?