Tag: reading

Off Course, Of Course

gr4c52 Comments

My system of choosing books for the Book Lust Challenge couldn’t be without a snag here or there. Well…having said that, I found my first tangle in five years.
In July we are switching library systems and like the switching of anything there will be a down-time, an adjustment period. You know how it is. Change = Dead in the water. In my case it means a complete halt of requesting books from public libraries from my armchair/laptop vantage point. From June to sometime in October all borrowing as I know it will stop. In order to keep the system going I will need to, (heaven forbid), actually get a public library card. I haven’t had one of those babies (aside from Monhegan) in at least 12 years. Oh the horror!
I’ll admit it. I’m spoiled. I like having my books plopped on my desk, right where I work. No visit to a public library necessary.

So. The solution? Borrow from my own academic library and finally, finally read the books I have collected at home. I think I have over a year’s worth of books just waiting for the right time to be read. That time is now. This should be interesting.

My plan of attack is to first compile a list of all the books I have at the ready to pull off the shelves and just read.
Second step is to determine when the aforementioned books were originally scheduled to be read. An example: I have the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on a shelf at home. Off the top of my head I know Ben was born in January. So, I probably had planned to read this in the month of January some year from now…. I’m guessing because I usually go by birth month before anything else. But now the question is can I find another reason to read about Ben Franklin between June and November? Probably. What month did he fly his kite? What month did he move to Philadelphia? When did he become a Junto? When did he marry? When did he die? In other words, how else can I honor him?

Rest assured. June 2011 is covered. I am reading …And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer. Why only one book planned for 30 days of June? Well, for starters it is over 1,400 pages long (spanning 60 years it should!). And for another it looks a bit dull! This should take some time. *sigh* So. June 2011 is …And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer in honor of June being “Small Town Month” and this epic takes place in a small town…supposedly.

March ’11 is…

gr4c5Leave a comment

I consider March to be a month of all things serious. I will be serious about training for the Just Cause 60-mile walk. I will be serious about keeping up with my PT. I will be serious about the goals I set for myself (written and unwritten). Oh so serious! For books the list for March is modest:

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ~ in honor of March being Book Reading Month. Isn’t this just the most classic book with which to start the month?
  • Flint by Paul Eddy ~ in honor of March being Action Hero Month. I forget who told me that. I know I just ran with it! Grace Flint is the hero of the month.
  • Famished Road by Ben Okri ~ in honor of African Writer’s month. Again, I don’t know where I got that info. I’m just going with it!
  • Blind Descent by Nevada Barr ~ in honor of March being Barr’s birth month
  • Cosi Fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin~ in honor of March being Dibdin’s birth month

There is still the LibraryThing Early Review book that is still missing in action AND I just received word I have been chosen for one for March as well. As always, I won’t name them until I see them!

In other news, there is news on the job front. I suppose that should be on the list of serious as well. *sigh*

October ’10 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment
Our nightly view

I spent the first eight days of October “stranded” on a remote, windblown island off the coast of Maine. Every morning was spent leisurely reading in bed, half listening to the sounds of surf and squabbling gulls. Cloudy afternoons were spent either hiking along rocky shores and overlooking cliff high vistas or combing seaweed strewn beaches for sea glass and shells. Quiet evenings were whiled away in front of a snapping orange glow fire with a good book in hand. It was a delicious way to end the day – just as I had started it, behind the pages of a book. Because of this simple routine it was easy to finish three books in eight days:

  • Messiah by Gore Vidal ~ in honor of Vidal’s birth month. This stayed with me as prophetic as it was.
  • The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson ~ in honor of October being special child month. Another futuristic story about a different kind of greed.
  • The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve ~ in honor of Halloween. Probably my favorite book of the month.

After the vacation home I returned to the daily grind and was able to finish the following books:

  • Ways of Seeing by John Berger ~ in honor of Art Appreciation month. This took me a lunch break to read so I read it several times.
  • Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape by Frans de Waal ~ in honor of de Waal’s birth month and October being animal month. At first I was bothered by the graphic Bonobo photography but I got over it.
  • Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier ~ in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I have to admit – the cover of this book cracked me up (simple, yet says so much).
  • Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering by Wendy Lesser ~ in honor of National Book Month. This was okay.
  • Bird Brains: the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies and Jays by Candace Savage ~ in honor of Bird Watching month. A big, bold, beautiful book (loved the photography).

For LibraryThing and the Early Review program, two books:

  • Yes You Can! : Your Guide to Becoming an Activist by Jane Drake and Ann Love was waiting for me when I returned from vacation. Since it is only 133 pages long and written for young adults it took me just a few hours to read it cover to cover.
  • Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin was really, really good.

    •  

Confession: Autumn has always been my private hell. People think I’m kidding when I say bad things always happen to me between September and December…until I start recounting the black clouds. This year while I had a few bad things roll in my direction it was nothing like what happened with friends and family. Losing fathers, losing jobs, losing lives. The walls came tumbling down. As one friend put it, “I’m having a hard enough time recovering as is and now this?” And now this. I bury my head in books to avert my heart.

Nothing Remains the Same

gr4c5Leave a comment

Lesser, Wendy. Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

The title, Nothing Remains the Same comes from a letter Mark Twain wrote to William Dean Howells in 1887. What he is referring to is also the premise of Lesser’s book – rereading a book at a different stage of life shouldn’t be the same experience as the first time. Twain argues that “nothing remains the same.” I am in agreement. When I was in high school I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for an English class. As a 14 year old I was guided through the pages like a blind girl. Six years later I reread The Scarlet Letter for a Women in Literature class. I was forced fed the ideals of a feminist faculty; seeing the story through her sense of self while struggling with my own. Finally, I reread Scarlet for me and myself last year. This time I read it without bias or guidance, without ulterior motive. No grade rested on my comprehension of text. It was like reading it for the very first time and oh so self indulgent. Lesser offers a literary criticism of a handful of books she has reread throughout her life. Each chapter of Nothing Remains the Same takes on a different well known book starting with Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady. Sprinkled throughout each chapter are details of Lesser’s life, some seemingly unrelated to the book in question, others all about the reading (using it in graduate school, for example).

Lessing spends a great deal of time quoting from the books she is remembering which can be nice if you have never read them yourself but slightly irritating if you know them well. (I was somewhere in the middle.)

Favorite lines, “I had constructed a life in which I could be energetic but also lazy; I could rush but I would never be rushed” (p 3), and “In the meantime, as is always the case, the process of winning the batle has slightly cheapened the prize for me” (p 208).

Small gripe – say what you mean, mean what you say. Why write, “I decided to leave Anna Karenina out of my book” when you go on to mention it five times and dedicate an entire section to it? Complete with a quote, the section was at least a full page. This decision to discuss a book you originally wanted to leave out seems self indulgent, contradictory and rambling.

Overall I enjoyed Nothing Remains the Same. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the initial tone Lesser took. Example – early on (page 9) Lesser makes the comment, “Twelve seems young for a first reading…” (of Don Quixote) but in the next sentence she adds, “…when I first read Don Quixote I was eleven.” I felt like Lesser could have added, “so there!” punctuated with a tongue sticking out. It felt condescending and made me very aware of how many times she mentioned her age. I half expected her to say something about reading War and Peace in kindergarten.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Books About Books” (p 43).

May ’10 Is…

gr4c5Leave a comment
  • Endless Love by Scott Spencer ~ in honor of Lust Month
  • Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis ~ in honor of National Short Story month
  • Wobegone Boy by Garrison Keillor ~ in honor of May being the month Minnesota became a state
  • The Victorians by A.N. Wilson ~ in honor of Antique Week
  • You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Older) Mother by Judith Newman ~ in honor of Mother’s day

Promises. Promises. I should know better. With the Just ‘Cause walk happening (finally) this month I will refrain from writing any more than than this…

March ’10 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment

When I sat down to first write “March ’10 was…” I suddenly became exhausted by the very idea of it. Not sure why. Could it be that 300+ books later and I am finally losing steam? Am I becoming weary of the process? I wasn’t not sure. This recap was designed to keep myself accountable to the “Fill-in-the-blank Is…” post. Something to check back in with, designed to ask myself, “How does what I really read by the end of the month compare to what I set out to accomplish at the beginning of the month?” Truth be known, it has been fun to see how far off the map my reading has taken me. Titles that were so far off my radar are a joy to remember at month’s end. So, in answer to my own questions – no I don’t think I’m burnt out, losing steam, becoming weary of the process. I think I needed to put it back into perspective…kind of like hiking up that bra strap that has slipped out of place…

  • Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban ~ turtles and strange relationships. What’s not to love?
  • Goodnight, Nebraska by Tom McNeal ~ this should have been a movie
  • Jennifer Government by ~ this will be a movie, I swear
  • Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam ~ one reporter’s take on the political firestorm and other events that led up to the Vietnam war and beyond…
  • An Armful of Warm Girl by William M. Spackman~this was so bizarre…
  • King Lear by William Shakespeare ~ classic.
  • The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ~ in honor of Florida becoming a state in the month of March

Here’s something really cool. I started reading Affliction by Russell Banks because it was on my March list (Russell Banks’s birth month) but it’s also on my April list. That means I can continue reading  Affliction in April…That doesn’t happen that often.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program I was able to finish two books:

  • No Instructions Needed: An American Boyhood in the 1950s by Robert Hewitt, and
  • The Man From Saigon by Marti Leimbach.

Just a note on The Man From Saigon ~ It was very interesting to read this at the same time as reading a nonfiction about the same topic.

March was also a month of healing, getting sick again, seeing good, good drums, the weather getting warmer…and lots of training walks!

February ’10 is…

gr4c5Leave a comment

Off the top of my head, I’m not sure what to call February besides another cold, cold month. I could get all giddy and self-absorbed in the fact that it’s my birth month (so maybe I should be reading something by me – ha), but that doesn’t seem to be all that productive. Besides, my published work would take all of two minutes to read! February is a visit with Mr. Richard Marx II (formally known as Mr. Bubblegum). We have a date in three weeks. February is more time with Dr. Ruth. No offense, but after this month I would like to think I’m on the road to recovery and will not need so much attention in that area in the future. I have started training for Just ‘Cause and have moved my feet over 50 miles so far.

I should point out the obvious. This is late. February has also started out as my month to be overextended in a big way. Not sure if that’s a good thing.

For books it has been and will be:

  • Company of Three by Varley O’Connor ~ in honor of February being National Theater Month. Okay, so if you can’t get there, read about it!
  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin ~ in honor of Black History Month
  • Warriors Don’t Cry: a Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High by Melba Patillo Beals ~ in honor of Civil Rights month
  • Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder ~ in honor of medical workers in Haiti right now.
  • Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences by Edward Tenner ~in honor of National Science month.

There is a rumor of another LibraryThing Early Review book. The publisher was nice enough to send me a thank you for reviewing the book, but until I actually have it in my hand I won’t be mentioning it here.

January ’10 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment

January 2010 was all wrong. I put many other activities ahead of reading. Knitting- mom’s blanket was falling apart so I took some time to fix that (as well as add new trim). I also started a new blanket of blue and white. Haven’t figured out why I’m making this one at all. I think it will go to the island because we certainly don’t need another blanket! Working out – been walking & running on the treadmill withe some regularity, as well as weight training and a little yoga. Cooking – been getting back to making real meals which need more time…Bad television – I’ve become addicted to the addict shows: Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Hoarders, and Intervention. I seem to identify with the misfits a little too well.

So, having said all that – reading wasn’t my highest priority. Behold the (ahem*) ‘finished’ list:

  • High Five by Janet Evanovitch ~ in honor of female mystery month (whatever that means).
  • The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden (*) ~ in honor of the book lust of others (again, whatever that means).
  • The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything by K.C. Cole (*) ~ in honor of January being the “start-over/clean slate” month.
  • Echo House by Ward Just ~ in honor of Ward Just’s birth month.
  • In Search of Robinson Crusoe by Timothy Severin (*) ~ in honor of National Geographic month.
  • Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin ~ in honor of Mr. Franklin’s birth month.
  • Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Goethe ~ in honor of letter writing month.
  • The Little Friend by Donna Tartt ~ a behemoth of a book with an unsatisfying end.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program I finished Nothing Right, a collection of short stories by Antonya Nelson. If you are looking for quick snapshots of dysfunctional family life, this is the book for you!

* Sad to say, I didn’t get into these books enough to finish them. I did my 50 page rule and called it quits.

November 09 is…

gr4c5Leave a comment

November is a bundle of nerves dressed as confidence. I am trying to be brave in the face of unknown in Indecision City. Thanksgiving looms large.

For books the list is short. Two of the chosen titles are monsters (each over 500 pages long):

  • Dingley Falls by Michael Malone (in honor of Malone’s birth month)
  • Empire Express by David Haward Bain ~ in honor of National Travel Month
  • Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey ~ in honor of November being the best time to visit India
  • Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling ~ in honor of November being National Writing Month
  • Last Lion: Visions by William Manchester ~ in honor of Winston Spencer Churchill

I will be lucky if I get to Last Lion since Empire Express is over 900 pages long. The other book I’m hoping to get to if there is time is Last Best Place by various authors because the best time to visit Montana is November and I’ve always wanted to go.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program I am reading Ostrich Feathers by Miriam Romm. I was notified in early October I would be getting it but since the book actually didn’t arrive until October 24th I have decided to call it a November book.  I also got word I will be receiving a November book. I guess I will be very busy!

ps~ I just received word my all-time favorite author, Barbara Kingsolver, is coming out with a new novel. Holy freak me out! I simply cannot wait! YAY!

July ’09 Was…

gr4c53 Comments

July ’09 was yesterday, but it was also a really fun month (despite the pool letting go). First there was meeting a friend for dinner and asking her to come work for me! Then there was Rebecca Correia’s Iron Horse show. Of course I rallied the troups (all 12 of us!) and we had a great time. I really need to blog about the three-way Kisa had with the girls and who can forget the Wicked Wally?
How could I forget Boston? The trip into the city was amazing because the company couldn’t have been more perfect. They caught the mandarin fish! I have a few pictures from the day of my way, but I’m dying to see theirs!
July was also the return to running. I am proud to say I logged 35.21 miles in July.

  • The Skull Mantra by Eliott Pattison ~ this one stayed with me for awhile. I think it should be a movie.
  • The Stillmeadow Raod by Gladys Taber ~ cute.
  • Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx ~ ugly.
  • The Enemy by Lee Child ~ fascinating. Can’t wait to read the others!
  • Morningside Heights by cheryl Mendelson ~ middle class society in Manhattan.
  • The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling ~ a little tough to get into at first.
  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ~ back to a classic!

For the fun of it:

  • Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

I was supposed to read a couple of Early Review books but only one arrived in July. I will have to review it in August (I’m reading it now).

Accidental Walk Two

gr4c5Leave a comment

I didn’t mean to walk today. Wow. That sounded weird. Weird and incredibly. What I meant to say was I wasn’t supposed to put in a training walk for Project Bread today. I have a partner for this endeavor and I would prefer to put in the walks with her. But, here’s the deal. I have had a sore throat to the point of pain for almost a week. Someone with a lot of medical credentials at the end of her name asked me if I thought not being able to swallow for a week was normal. Okay, she had a point. I had been living on a “hot” diet for a week – anything cold killed my throat. I wanted nothing more than another week in bed.

Instead I found myself on the treadmill. Trying to read and walk at the same time. I wanted to walk two miles just to say I did. Laundry spinning behind me. Snow falling outside. Kisa on his way home. Me, trying to read The Biggest Elvis, book bouncing up and down. Just to say I did. I ended up walking to a program called “Rolling Hills.” Alternating speed, alternating incline. It was funny, trying to balance the book while all this was going on. In the end it was 35 minutes, 1.6 miles…and no sore throat. Whle I didn’t make two miles I’m psyched. I think I could get used to this walking thing.

September is a Confession

gr4c510 Comments
Golden Days End
Golden Days End

I am all messed up. Turned inside out and tired. Really, really tired. Here’s the deal. I went home with a reading plan in place. I knew everything I wanted to read and even the order in which I would do all this reading. I even made a big deal about lugging all that stuff home. It didn’t happen. I got to Maine and everything fell apart.

In a stream of excuses here’s what happened: I didn’t bring the right books. I didn’t bring enough to books. I chased my nephews around instead of turning pages. I scoped out the neighbor’s new porch. I gorged on blackberries and crab apples. I couldn’t make time for the library let alone the internet. I held hands with my husband. Hiked huge hills with great friends. Watched sunsets with a glass of pino between my knees. Ate savory and sweet scones from Sweet Bob. When I did pick up a book it wasn’t one on my list (Islands by Anne Rivers Siddon comes to mind).

So, here’s the deal. I just escaped paradise. I’m just back and I’m just out of sorts. I don’t want to take a shower for fear of washing away my island residue. Last night I slept with the light on because the silence on the street was not the silence of the ocean. For once, the cat wasn’t the compatible companion. I have no clue what books I am supposed to be reading for September. I have no clue and right now I don’t care.

So, September is: slogging through tons and tons of email. (Yahoo = 234, Google = 565, LibraryThing = 3, work = 199, RealEstate = 66). September is Rebecca Correia on the 12th. September is Sean Rowe’s new album. Otherwise, September is slow to start.

Standing on the Platform…

gr4c57 Comments

For those of you in the know, you know that’s the beginning of a line from the movie Sliding Doors, one of my all time favs. The scene cracks me up.
But, back to the platform. That’s me. Standing on the platform in Indecision City. A really nice author friend likes my book reviews. She’s said as much. Like I said, really nice. But, and it’s a big but, she’s not so wild about the ranting. She gets a little squeamish when I mention the bullsh!t. Especially when it relates to my life. TMI! “I like what you read. I like how your brain works when you read. Your heart…well, it’s more than I need to know.” Odd. I say odd because most people classify my “reviews” as dry, without substance…the stuff they mutter “yeahyeahyeahwhatever” about as they scroll to the juicier bits. Hmmm. Here’s someone on the other side. A first!

So, this got me thinking. Do I split hairs with topics and separate my blogs? In truth, I’m already doing that. I “journal” my workout sessions, running miles, eating habits and yoga (dis)graces in another blog, just around the corner from here. It gets like two hits a day, but I’m okay with that. I just needed another space to fill up with “My shoulder keeps popping during overhead presses. This is NOT normal!”
So. Do I weed out the writing about reading and put it somewhere else? Start a fourth blog? Seems kind of excessive, right? Well, not if I would be writing those things anyway…Each blog would have more relevance to one thing. Maybe the BookLust Challenge blog would end up on someone else’s “review list” or something…

Or do I embrace life as I know it? Keep running&yoga where it is. Keep books&blatherings together in an unlikely (but surviving) marriage? There is no doubt I was hurt by someone stealing my creativity and passing it off as her own. I’m not flattered. But, I’m also not deterred. I will not stop using these spaces as creative outlets. Write on I will. But, here’s the question – how?

ps~ this was supposed to be the real  blog of the day!