Mayday, Mayday!
Posted: 2020/05/02 Filed under: Confessional | Tags: books, challenge, childhood, Confessional, Covid-19, insane moments, reading Leave a commentThe entire world has changed seemingly overnight. No, that’s not true. COVID-19 had been brewing and building for months and months. Festering and threatening overseas. We knew it would come our American way, and yet. Yet! Here we are. I have been laid off from my job; have been quarantined for 40 plus days; have not seen the inside of a store of any kind; have not driven a car or talked face to face with another human being besides my Kisa. For over a month, I have been separated by screens and paranoia. I couldn’t even say goodbye to one of my closest friends for fear of contamination before he stole across borders towards a new home. Words like FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, Hangout, and Live Stream rule my daily existence. My insanity has been kept in check by these words, walking 8-9 miles a day, writing letters, and finishing chores I always said I would get to but never did (sewing ripped clothes, making curtains, hanging art, you name it). The one activity I haven’t done much of is…read.
Nothing bothers me more than someone saying, “think of all the time you have to read!” They mean well but they just don’t know. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time reading. When I could get away with it, my nose was constantly in a book. In the dead of winter, when the summer tides of friends had gone out, I was left with my sister and a handful of kids close in age. Close, but not quite. Dead low tide was a boy one year older. A girl three years younger. A boy two years older. A boy four years younger. No one exactly shared my birth year. I found myself turning to friends within the pages of books. Lots and lots of books. Lots and lots of friends. My dad was not a fan of these relationships. He viewed fiction as leisure or worse, laziness. “Get outside! Get some fresh air!” was his constant bark from early October through May. His bark was so biting I grew up fearing fiction was a form of loafing; something to never to be caught doing in broad daylight. I remember smuggling Nancy Drew under my shirt when I went to the school bathroom; ducking under covers with a flashlight to join Bilbo on his great adventure; climbing trees with Stephen King clenched in my teeth. Hiding to hang out with a paperback became normal.
In 2006 when I started the BookLust Challenge, I thought I had slayed the old insecurities. I thought I could spend time with a book without guilt. For fourteen years I held onto this belief as a private gospel…until I got laid off and I couldn’t sit on the couch with a book. All the old feelings of leisure, loafing, laziness came flooding back. Guilt. I realized I only read when I was killing time, waiting for something else. Constructive book devouring? I don’t know. For years, I could juggle reading 5-6 books at a time and finish 10 in a month. But! That was when I was on hold with a vendor, bored in the boardroom, waiting in line at the grocery store, fighting nerves in the doctor’s office, sitting as a passenger on long car/train/plane/boat rides. Reading kept me from waiting for anything. Take all the time you need while I finish this chapter…
I have been out of work for one month, collecting unemployment equal to my take-home pay and yet I’ve only managed to finish two books. I guess I could try to tell myself I am waiting to go back to work, but that’s too abstract for my too literal mind. Mayday! Mayday, I can’t read.
I always said I will die before I officially finish the reading Challenge. Now I know it to be true.
The Morning Star
Posted: 2020/02/21 Filed under: Book Reviews, Fiction | Tags: 2020, art, book review, february, Fiction, insane moments, Nick Bantock, romance, series Leave a commentBantock, Nick. The Morning Star: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Illuminated. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003.
Reason read: Friday, I’m in love. – the Cure.
Back to Griffin & Sabine. It always comes back to Griffin Moss & Sabine Strohem. Except not. This time, it is Matthew and Isabella. Matthew Sedon and Isabella de Reims are madly, hopelessly, truly in love. Except, like Griffin and Sabine before them, they cannot reach each other. He, in Alexandria, Egypt. She, in Paris, France. The archaeologist and the student worlds apart. Unable to connect, their romance depends on the guidance of the only other couple to experience such a divide. Through similar letters and postcards, Matthew & Isabella explore worlds beyond their imagination. Will they ever meet?
Book trivia: this was supposed to be the final book in the Griffin and Sabine saga. It is not.
Counted Among the Crazy
Posted: 2014/11/06 Filed under: Complaining, Confessional | Tags: books, challenge, insane moments, numbers, reading Leave a commentAs you may or may not know and as you may or may not care, I miscounted the books left to go in my Book Lust Challenge. I had previously decided I was going to embrace the new number and move on. Obviously, I didn’t embrace and I haven’t moved on. I am still trying to figure out how I miscounted. But. But! But, in that figuring out, I think I’m beginning to get answers. Go figure.
The root of the problem lies in what was indexed. Across all three Book Lusts the editors were not consistent with what information should be included. In Book Lust any book mentioned in the introduction was not included in the index. Full titles were not listed. A lot of the poetry and short stories were missed. In all, there were over 140 mistakes in the index of Book Lust. Now, let’s look at More Book Lust. 18 titles didn’t make it into the index and most of those were either poetry or short stories. Full titles were included (unlike Book Lust). In Book Lust To Go instead of missing information there was an overabundance of information. For starters, take the titles Le Marriage and Le Divorce. These two titles are indexed twice – once under L for Le and once under M and D for Marriage and Divorce, respectively. Two titles, four entries in the index. Duh. Another issue – only in Book Lust To Go is the series title indexed along with the individual books within the series. Example: Kristen Lavransdatter is the name of the series and it is composed of The Cross, The Wife, and The Wreath. Three books, four entries in the index. Interestingly enough, Kristen Lavransdatter is also indexed in More Book Lust but only by the series title. There is no mention of The Cross, The Wife or The Wreath. Surprise! Bottom line, I don’t really know how many individual titles I have to read. Meh.
So, as you can see (clear as mud) I am trying to sort out the titles. This is going to take some time. I’ll try not to go crazy.
Strangled Charity
Posted: 2012/12/14 Filed under: charity, Confessional | Tags: books, charity, Confessional, dilemma, Early Review, insane moments, librarything, reading Leave a commentI have a decidedly dumb dilemma. Books. Too many of them. Well, more accurately I have too many uncorrected proofs. Nearly 70 different titles. In the beginning…we’re talking 2006..I was asked to join LibraryThing’s Early Review program. Here’s how it works: ever month LT posts a list of new books to be published and you request one to be reviewed before publication. I have been honored to “win” nearly 70 early publications and I have reviewed them all. Well, let me clarify. I have faithfully reviewed every title I have received. I’m still waiting for two…
In the beginning it was a pride thing. I was so thrilled to be asked to join this program that I saved every single book I was asked to review. I wanted to keep an entire collection of “librarythings” to mark the accomplishment. But now they are taking over! Ironically, the two favorites I wanted to keep I loaned away and never saw again (The Translator and Losing Clementine). But, back to the books I can’t keep. I argue with myself and moi about what to do all the time.
Here’s how it goes:
Me: We donate them to a charity?
Myself: It’s uncorrected proof. No one wants to read an unfinished product.
Me: We could donate them to a library?
Moi: You wrote tags, notes and stuff all through them. You underlined and dog eared pages. (Shame on you, librarian!)
Me: We could give them to friends?
Myself: And how would you decide who gets what? Think of that Orgasmic Pregnancy one! Who would get that?
Me: We could offer them up free to anyone interested near and far? FaceBook? They would just pay my shipping costs?
Myself: And what if people don’t send you $$ to mail them? You are trying to renovate your kitchen, remember?
Me: We could throw them out?
Moi: You would hate yourself and chase after the recycling truck to bring them back.
Me: We could just keep them?
Myself: Out of the question. You don’t hold onto books unless you love them. You are running out of room with things you don’t love.
Me: I do hate clutter.
Moi: See?
So. What to do? Maybe when the weather gets warmer I’ll set up an alfresco book store with a big ole “Free” sign and see what happens. It could be a study in sociology. Do people like uncorrected proofs? Would they mind my in-page musings? Do people like free no matter what? And who will take that Orgasmic Pregnancy book?
Pulse Check
Posted: 2012/12/04 Filed under: audio book, Confessional, E-Books, Early Review, Fiction, Graphic Novel, NonFiction, Poetry | Tags: anniversary, books, Confessional, insane moments, reading Leave a commentThis is the list for Year Seven of the Book Lust Challenge. I’ll update it at the end of each month, just to keep myself honest.
- Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
- Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
- Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year)
- Ariel by Sylvia Plath
- At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
- Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter- Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
- Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
- Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
- Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
Breakfast with Scot by Michael DrowningBrush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan- Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
- Burning the Days by James Salter
Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes- Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
- Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
- Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert- Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
- Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
- Deafening by Frances Itani
- Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
- Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
- Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
- Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear- Fanny by Edmund White
- Final Solution by Michael Chabon
- Fixer by Joe Sacco
- Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
- Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
- Galton Case by Ross MacDonald ~ reading right now
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
- Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
- Going Wild by Robert Winkler
- Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris EwanGood Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan- Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
- Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
- Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
- Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
- House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
- House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
- Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
- Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
- Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
- Lives of the Painters (
vol 2, 3 & 4) by Giorgio Vasari - Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
- No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
- Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
- Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
- Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
- Panther Soup by John Grimlette
- Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
- Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
- Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
- Rosalind Franklin by Brenda Maddox
- Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff- Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
- Southpaw by Mark Harris
- Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova ~ reading right now
- Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
- Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
- Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin- What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
- Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
- Widow for One Year by John Irving
- Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
- Working Poor by David Shipler
Ten Hours Until Dawn Postscript
Posted: 2012/08/24 Filed under: audio book, Confessional, NonFiction | Tags: boats, coast guard, Confessional, death, father, Frank Quirk, insane moments, Michael Tougias, tragedy Leave a commentThis should be a ps at the end of the Tougias review but somehow it doesn’t seen appropriate to put it there. What I am about to say has nothing to do with the review but is essential to the enjoyment of the book. LISTEN TO THE AUDIO BOOK! Seriously. I wrote my review before listening to the acknowledgments and thank yous and the I-couldn’t-have-written-this-book-without-you spiel. I should have waited until all that was over. Here’s what I would have included:
Listen to the very end of Ten Hours Until Dawn. What you will hear will chill your heart and break your soul. Listening to the actual radio calls between Coast Guard stations Glouster, Salem and Peabody and Frank Quirk, Captain of the “Can Do” is breathtaking. You spend so much time hearing an actor portray these people and you spend so much time with Tougias’s words that when the real exchange is finally heard it’s like a punch to the gut. On a personal note, I felt actual anger listening to the captain of the Global Hope fumble for the correct terminology to describe his situation. I felt sheer helplessness listening to Charlie Bucko make the mayday call from the “Can Do”. Listening to these people blew my mind. Maybe I am so moved because my father was a tried and true Coastie. To be sure I have been thinking of him as I heard Frank Quirk’s brave voice on the radio. Next month marks the 20th anniversary of my father’s passing; a man who died while trying to save the life of another.
But, back to Ten Hours Until Dawn. I have to admit this is one of those rare times when I want to read the book even after hearing the audio version. This is a story that truly resonated with me.
Signed, Sealed, Committed
Posted: 2012/02/28 Filed under: Confessional | Tags: books, Confessional, insane moments, reading Leave a commentI celebrated another birthday recently. Nothing outrageous, nothing wild. It was pretty quiet except for the discovery that I am committed to be crazy. Hook. Line. Sinker. I am caught up in a colossal challenge I can’t (won’t?) escape. to explain:
In 2006 someone gave me Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust (better known as simply ‘BL’ in my world). Nothing more than a compilation of recommended reading for “every mood” as Pearl put it. When I first flipped through it I thought, “how quaint.” After some serious page turning I thought, “what a great idea to catalog all these books in such this way!” Funny how first impressions are so innocent. Hindsight definitely reveals a stranger, more elusive obsession in the making. I really don’t know how it all started. I don’t know what made me decide to read every single book indexed in Book Lust. All I do know is that after I was given More Book Lust (MBL) soon after that sealed the deal. Somehow that second book committed me to the challenge. I found myself promising to read EVERY book indexed in Book Lust AND More Book Lust. I wasn’t looking for a fight; no throw down. I didn’t challenge anyone to join me. This was going to be a battle fought by me, myself and moi. I remember meeting Nancy Pearl at a convention. After she signed my books I told her about my insane challenge. She seemed excited when she asked, “are you the one with the website?” but was definitely deflated when I said no, I wasn’t. To be fair, at the time I knew there was at least one other person with the same such project. She had a website and was soliciting book buyers to help her with her reading. I wasn’t that person. As a librarian I could do no such thing. Circulation is at the core of library success.
Anyway, fast forward to Happy Birthday to me. I’m opening a package from my sister. Sitting in my truck with the engine running because I just couldn’t wait. Despite being in my own driveway. I had to laugh when my own eagerness revealed Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl. Here we go again. I knew myself all too well. The only question was how long would it take before I would decide to add all the titles of BLTG to my challenge? Not long. Not long at all. In fact, I hadn’t read a single word of BLTG before I was formulating a new plan. Adjustments would have to be made. Between BL and MBL I had amassed over 4,000 titles to read. At first glance I estimated BLTG would add another 2,000 unique titles…give or take.
And so it begins. I have a feeling LunaSea will be busy.
Hoarder
Posted: 2010/01/19 Filed under: Complaining, General, Life | Tags: blogs, Book Reviews, insane moments, organization Leave a commentI have gotten obsessed with the show, ‘Hoarders’ on A&E (at least I think it’s A&E…). It’s all about people who collect and keep things until the things control their lives. It’s rather scary, but I watch the show to encourage me & myself to take a keen eye to our own clutter. Books, hair clips, shoes, casserole dishes, letters, hotel lotions, charity walk t-shirts. It all starts to pile up after awhile. Loss of control isn’t all that out of the ordinary.
I’m feeling a little disheveled when it comes to the Book Challenge. Old blogs aren’t filed properly. They don’t follow format and are missing valuable tags. There is no order to the older stuff. At the same time, I have the sudden obsession to call Ms. Pearl out on a few things. Like, why are (nearly) whole chapters in More Book Lust made up of books already listed in Book Lust? There are over 100 titles listed in both books. Some have triple or even quadruple mentions.
In an effort to organize this whole project I am taking a closer look at all of the older book review blogs. I am cleaning up tags (and adding missing ones), including a BookLust Twist to the really old posts, and taking note of repeat titles. I realize this is going to be really annoying for anyone with an RSS feed to this blog. You’ll think I’m writing up a storm when really, all that’s happening is an update here or there. I am really, really sorry about that. I just need a little mis en place in my life.
If It Comes to You
Posted: 2009/07/03 Filed under: Confessional, history, Letters, Life | Tags: Confessional, gifts, insane moments, writing Leave a commentIf it comes to you in ashes that means I burned it. Burned it, but sent it to you anyway. I am twisted enough that I would do something like that…just to show you my good intentions comes with an evil streak. I started this whole thing in earnest thinking I would, I could, build you a masterpiece. Something worthy of a bedside table as a good bedtime story..or maybe even a coffee table out in the open if I let myself dare to dream that big and ambitious and grandiose. Shopping for supplies was much like being a id again. I was drawn in by sparkly stickers, glittery borders, sticky glue, funky cutting scissors, colored paper of vellum and linen and cotton. So much to chose from I didn’t know where to begin or end. Embellishments aplenty. My credit card shook from exhaustion. I wish I could say my enthusiasm for the project held up through the piles and piles of purchases, pages and pages of printed out out-of-print pictures, the plethora of everything saved and once cherished. Suddenly, without warning I felt unworthy of the task at heart. Who was I to decide what to keep? What to exclude? How could I decide what was coffee table worthy? Every well-wished sentiment, every scrap of paper had something worth saving, keeping, holding onto. The insecurity grew and grew and grew with each passing page created until finally every page created became a page hated.
So, I started again. Tearing the old masterpiece down and starting new. Different ideas flowed and I worked feverishly to retain the enthusiasm. I worked methodically, determined to use everything given to me, entrusted to me. Everything meant a creation oversized and bulging. Bigger and bigger. But, like a sandcastle caught in a rising tide my enthusiasm ebbed away…again. This time it was my displeasure with how cramped and crowded every page looked. Bigger didn’t mean better. My eagerness to please was obvious overkill on every page. With remorse, I tore it down again and again.
I ended up rebuilding a third time. I started with all new supplies. This time I dared to play god to the creation. I dared to determine the worth of each scrap. When it was done I was proud of it but also insecure. I needed more time to reconcile the conflicting emotions before I sent it off.
I never sent it. It’s still here. I sent a decoy, a fake. something to placate you and keep me covered. I still want to burn it. I still want you to have it. Two conflicting emotions. So, maybe it will come to you…in ashes.
Bite Me
Posted: 2009/07/02 Filed under: Bad, Complaining, Confessional, Life | Tags: Complaining, Confessional, hate, insane moments, jealousy 4 CommentsI think nine times out of ten people are cruel because they have something better to say…but they can’t think of it at the moment. Can’t think on their feet so they act like a heel. They have to be funnier than kind. Hurtful is hilarious and sweet is just plain silly. I think nine times out of ten people are critical because they are jealous. They don’t want to admit to being lacking or without. Just because they can. What does it take for someone to see the riches in life without making comparisons? It takes a tragedy to recognize a triumph.
And now for something completely different.
Thank you for making me smile. Thank you for taking me out of my funk. I am glad I agreed to go. I’m glad you were there to greet me. Here’s the thing. I don’t say it enough but I value every minute of your time. I don’t take advantage of that time everytime but you inspire me just the same. Even if I only take ten minutes I am so much the better for it. Really. In the here and now I am on the other side of jumping. I think I have even started to climb down from the ledge. I think I’m close enough to the ground to stand on my own two feet. Soon. But, but. But! I still need you and your smile. I still need to know you are there. Even if I decide to jump after all.