Books: Past, Present, & Future

I've been devouring a few books lately.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Just finished. Choppy. Edgy. Honest. Worth it. 

An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler

More than half way through. My style. A real love affair with the ingredients. Good writing.

Macrame Pattern Book by Marchen Art Studio

Next up. This one looks a little dicey. I used to love to knot though, so I thought I'd give it another go. In my old age.

Super Full Moon

I caught last month's super full moon coming up over a distant hill. This shot makes the moon look like it's resting on an oak. Well, more like squashing the oak, but it's going the other way. Rising, that is.

I've been wanting to review all the books I've read lately. I'm in the reading zone, not the writing one, I guess. Even these few words written have come with difficulty. I don't know why.

Norwegian Wood: Review

After I read Haruki Murakami's autobiography, I knew I wanted to read a few of his novels. He is a well-known Japanese novelist with a very modern approach. So a checked out a couple and started to read concurrently, but quickly opted to just one for fear of getting the stories mixed up. Norwegian Wood was the first one.

I had just finished Catcher in the Rye and was hoping for something completely different. Unfortunately Norwegian Wood is Murakami's Catcher in the Rye.

I didn't see that in the beginning. In fact, I was sucked in by a surprisingly wonderful first chapter. The best chapter in the book. The second chapter was the second best, the third chapter was the third best, and then the book sort of plateau and by the end, well the conclusion was foregone. The reader knows from the start what the end will be. Or maybe I'm just a good guesser.

Without giving too much away, this book was very much like Catcher in the Rye coming of age story, only the storyteller is a little older and in college. Short aside: I finished the book on January 9th. On the same day there was a Japanese holiday, but I hadn't a clue of what kind of holiday it was. (I have a Flickr contact who is Japanese and her photos show some kind of celebration.) So I Googled it of course, and guess what? Jan. 9 is The National Coming of Age Day in Japan, and the age in which they celebrate is 20 years old.

Anyway, the age of 20 figures prominently in this book. So weird how everything sort of interconnects.

Really, the strength of this writer is in his descriptions of nature and landscape, his ability to paint his characters unique, and the main character is far more likable than Holden.

I might recommend it, but first I want to read a few more of his titles.

The Catcher in the Rye: Review

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published in 1951. Many consider it an act of genius, a real capture of the truth of adolescence, and witty and bright. I found myself really hating life as I read it, and this was around Christmas, a holiday that I love.

I never read this in school, although I was aware of it and I think it was required in some English class. But I knew of it, the lead character, the setting. I just had not read the classic and figured now would be a good time to do so. A clean copy crossed my desk, and I have to take advantage of those clean copies.

Like I said but not in so many words, I didn't like the book. I thought it was tedious. Maybe for 1951 it was avant grade, I don't know. I found myself wishing the main character would commit suicide. I did not like him or really anyone in the story.

I went to Amazon to screen shot this cover and found myself reading the five star reviews, and then reading the one star reviews. I was glad to agree with the one star folks and most of them were actual teen-agers.

If you have read this book and think that it is wonderful, please tell me why.

Classics Book Club Update

I skipped February, March, and now it looks like April too.

I had ordered Anna Karenina from the library and it arrived straight away. Unfortunately it was in Russian. Yeah, well, learning Russian is on my list but not this year.

A copy of Treasure Island was opened and considered, but I wanted to do Anna, so ye ole Mister went to the Book Haven today and found a beautiful volume.

Damn the thing is huge! A real door stop like War and Peace. So I do not think I will complete this masterpiece in four days for April.

For May then, I have Hardy's Far from the library, yet I feel a strong pull to stay with women authors and read Little Women.

My idea is just to keep plugging along doing the best I can. I see now that building a literature section in my personal library is highly desirable. Also re-reading and note-taking, and auxiliary reading will add depth that makes this endeavor more of a lifetime pursuit and not just a quick read and chat of the-book-of-the-month that (seems most) book clubs have become. *Not that there is anything wrong with that. *

What I mean to say is that I'm evolving, and although I'm not sure what I wanted when I started, I am sure now I don't want to read just to have read.  To spend time with a classic book is sacred time.

My fall (and possible return) from grace

Making excuses for being late has always bugged me. Sure there are times when being late to an appointment or turning in an assignment late has a reason, but for the most part, lateness to me is lack of planning, a lack of caring, and a lack of respect to oneself and whomever expects a prompt arrival or return or report.

So currently I hate myself.

I have tried and failed to read one classic book a month and cannot keep up. I deprived myself of reading other things because I know I must read this month's selection and yet it still is not read. Now I'm two months behind.

I am a horrible book club leader and I know it.

Not only do I suck at my reviews, I can't get my shit together to simply get the reading done. I'm sorry.

A couple of months ago I wondered if my lack of concentration to the printed page was, um, poor eyesight. As in old eyesight. As in I needed reading glasses.

Yep. And so I ordered a nice pair and now I never use them because I am used to taking off my glasses (I am near-sighted) when I read. Eventually not using reading glasses won't be an option, I suppose.

Earlier this week when I had yet another coma inducing event with Cranford (I can't read a page of this classic without day dreaming about something anything other than the story), I was reminded of the website Project Gutenberg. And since I read so much so very very much off the computer screen, I wondered if this site had Cranford and what would it be like to read off the computer screen.

Aside: Not too long ago, some of us claimed that reading books on the computer would "give us headaches" and that would never ever happen. We claimed that sure blogs and snippets could be read, but never ever a work, like a fiction novel or a scientific paper. Never would we read from a computer screen.

We were Fools. That includes me.

Obviously I love to read stuff on the computer screen. In fact I can and sometimes do spend entire days reading from my computer. So why was I so surprised three chapters of Cranford were swallowed like sugar water (and now I am deep into the story - Yay)... Why?

This is coupled with the quality of books I'm reading as well. Which needs to be explained. I order books from my library. Classics are usually worn. One exception was Voltaire, but most others are in horrible shape. My library copy of Cranford is a paperback made into a hardcover with yucky yellow stains and filled with underlining in Bic ballpoint blue ink pen.

If you have ever done this to a book whether it be a your own or a library book, don't tell me. I might have to kill you. With a bic ballpoint pen. In blue.

Cold Comfort Farm: Discussion

My December read for The Classics Book Club was Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. Although it was a thoroughly enjoyable book, it seems the only solid time I had to read was when I was working and what with the holidays and my new found love of Skype, even then there was precious few minutes to devote to this classic.

Firstly many have said, complained really, that CCF is not a classic at all. It is just an old book. Published in the 1930s, some would even claim that CCF is not old enough to be a classic. I think yes, it is quite true when some book or movie comes out and the tagline is "destined to become a classic" that rings my "doubt meter." So whether or not the reader want to consider CCF a classic is fine by me.

Incidentally I pulled these titles off a list that was compiled by really smart book people, so CCF is a classic to me.

The basic storyline is a young woman is left with a small monthly inheritance after her parents die.  The amount of money is too small to live on in London, so her friends advise her to get a job. She doesn't want a job and schemes to live with distant relatives in exchange for the monthly allotment. So she sets out to write to five separate aunts or cousins and waits to hear a reply. She wants to pick the most unusual situation, so she can write about her experiences in a memoir when she hits her middle years.

Guess where she moves to? Book title.

This is really a character study, and I mean character, and I find my favorite fiction is often heavy with character study, so CCF get full bars and all the stars.

Highly descriptive with turning phrases, it was funny. And I really liked the main character, Flora. I think that is important. I have to care about somebody in a fictional work. Anybody will do. It does not have to be the main character. It doesn't even really have to be a human. So I should say I have to care about somebody or something in a fictional work.

Oh yes I finally figured out "the wink" in Voltaire's Candide. He must have cried laughing at all the people touching the hems of greatness. A must read from now till the end of time.

Back to CCF - I found it interesting that at the same time I was reading CCF, I was watching the first season of Dexter. Not at the exact same time, but time frame. At any rate, they both had this "something nasty happened in the woodshed" arc, which is a clever little plot device. I mean the viewer wants to know "what happened?" Right?

Of course, I'm not going to tell you.

And they both sightly nod to the audience like you see what I'm doing because I have to do what I'm doing, you see.

It's wonderful when the various passions in life overlap. Almost spooky.

Join The Classics Book Club

Now is the time to start a good habit; don't wait for the new year. Read one or the other book per month and join me and others in a discussion that will be held in the comments section of this blog posted towards the end of the month. 

Don't forget to get the button on the right sidebar. That's "A Woman Reading" by Monet, 1872.

September

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

October

Howards End by E. M. Forster

The Europeans by Henry James

November

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Candide by Voltaire

December

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

January

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

February

Olivier Twist by Charles Dickens

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

March

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

April

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

May

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

June

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Middlemarch by George Elliot

July

Vanity Fair by William Makepiece Thackeray

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

August

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

Namaste Hello Kitty

Namaste Hello Kitty, originally uploaded by Judy's Notebook.

Wow I love the internet! Bentobird found this photo and it inspired her to this!

Calendar Shopping Snowride

We did our annual calendar shopping expedition to B&N today. Plus he needs something to read. I am bathing in unfinished books, so that was not my purpose (however, that never stops me from looking).

I, for some reason, need a calendar in every room. Including the loo. Interestingly or not, my father must have a clock in every room. Including the loo. So there you go. Genetics.

Sort of. (Fessing here: I have a clock in the loo too. One that Dad gave me.) Oh God. Oh Internet.

Back to the point Judy. B&N is a strange little world, is it not? It looks like the possibilities are endless, but actually the place is quite limited. Sure calendars abound.

I always get Ansel for my office, and Llewelyn for the hallway. (Plus more. A lot more.) Well this year I bought neither. After 20 years of B&W just over there, and horoscopes coming out of the shower listing bad days and good days (really!! enough already), I said "Fuck it Pawtucket" and went down a different road.

Still with calendars though.

Maybe I'll do a calendar round up later this month seeing how that sounds so "blog worthy."

Giveaway Closing Soon

Winner will be chosen tomorrow night.

Enter now.

Enter here.

Representing

Most everything that I love about home. Music, books, plants & Si.

This Is...My Current Reading Material

At least this is what is on my GoodReads' "currently-reading" list. 

  

HeyLucy invited her readers (or do we call ourselves Followers now? Sounds kind of spooky like we're all in a cult!) to join GoodReads to share and keep track and review (if you're so inclined) the books you have read, currently reading, and the books in your holding pattern, waiting to land. 

  

A couple days ago I found out that one can name one's own shelves (liken to tagging) like "books-I-started-but-hated-so-much-I'm-never-going-to-finish-them." I have a few in that category. Or perhaps "books-that-I-say-I've-read-so-I-don't-come-across-looking-like-an-uncultured-dingbat." I have a few of those too.

  

Anyway I'd like to invite members of This Is... to come and explore GoodReads. We are such a world wide fabulous group of hip and cool individuals who like to share! Come visit me and be my friend too. And if you "follow me, I will follow you." (Hey, that sounds like a song!)

  

Thanks Three Buttons for hosting This Is... and My Champagne Dreams for the theme.

This Is...My Favorite Children's Book

I have difficulties with having just one favorite. Simply because I like a lot of different things, people, places, and books. Especially books. I remember really digging Macbeth and reading it over and over, and not wanting Little Women to end, wishing I lived in that family. I adored The Green Lantern (Do comic books count? Of course they do.) And there was this story that my father would tell me about princesses sneaking out at night to go dancing and flying on the backs of geese. I could be mixing up two different stories here, but that's the way of the memory.

  

I still come back to Beatrix Potter's books. So charming. The recent film Miss Potter renewed an longtime interest in these books.  I wish I could visit Hill Top. Maybe someday.

  

Unfortunately I turned into a "Mr. McGregor" chasing bunnies out of my garden. They really chewed down my Japanese eggplant early on. But it does seem that once they have fright or two, they don't come back.

Anyhoo, after searching around for images, I found the first edition online. Go to the link

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Thanks to Three Buttons for hosting, and Potty Mouth Mama for the theme.

In June Comes

This children's book is called Around The Year by Tasha Tudor and was published in 1957. My brother was clearing out my father's attic and thought that I might like to have it. I remember looking at this book before I could even read. The illustrations are just so charming.