All the parts of my life

Read-a-thon: We'll see how it goes

2011-10-22T09:20:00.000-05:00

The day is finally here, Jeff and the boys are at basketball practice, but I didn't make specific Read-a-thon plans or sign up early because I didn't know if we'd have anything else going on. But, we took yesterday off and did a day trip, so the rest of my weekend is pretty flexible, and I'm hoping to spend a good portion of the day reading. My husband suggested I do most of my housecleaning today, then it will be out of the way and I can read even more tomorrow. I said, "But the Read-a-thon is TODAY." And he was all, "It's A read-a-thon, and there seems to always be one going on," and I said, "No, it's THE Read-a-thon, and it's every six months, only twice a year." And I shook my head and told him he didn't understand. Nothing new there, I guess.

But, I finished my print book last night, and I'm not sure if I'd want to dig into a new book, or if I should "sample" as many of my unread books as possible, to see if they grab me enough that I want to continue to keep them around the house, or if they don't, then I can weed them. If I decide to do my housecleaning, though, I'll start an audiobook -- specifically, my third go-round with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm going to lead the book group discussion in November, so need to "re-read" it in time to prepare. So if I listen while cleaning, the time will count as reading, and there's no need to plan or make any decisions, just get my mp3 player, get my cleaning supplies, and GO. (Of course, I like the idea of reading "in print" when I'm the only one home and the house is quiet, which is NOW, through the next couple hours.) I'll decide after I finish breakfast and get this posted.

To sum up: I'm tossing my hat in the ring, but with lowered expectations. If I don't get much reading done, I will not be miserable about it.

I have to add, I loved this pre-Read-a-thon post from Alice at Reading Rambo, called "Why Readathons Never Actually Work for Me." The details are different, but the overall spirit is a lot like how my Read-a-thons usually end up. Her post is also really funny; go read it! And then, enjoy the rest of your Read-a-thon! :-)

My review of The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman

2011-10-15T18:33:00.000-05:00

From the publisher’s website:

In the final weeks of the Weimar Republic, as Hitler and his National Socialist party angle to assume control of Germany, beautiful girls are seen sleepwalking through the streets. Then, a young woman of mysterious origin, with her legs bizarrely deformed, is pulled dead from the Havel River. Willi Kraus, a high ranking detective in Berlin's police force, begins a murder investigation. A decorated World War I hero and the nation's most famous detective, Willi also is a Jew. Despite his elite status in the criminal police, he is disturbed by the direction Germany is taking. Working urgently to solve the murder, Willi finds his superiors diverting him at every turn. As he moves through darkness closer to the truth, Willi begins to understand that much more than the solution to a murder is at stake. What he discovers will mean that his life, the lives of his friends and family, and Germany itself will never be the same.

(First, an admission: when I saw this book on LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers list, I was drawn to it because the cover reminded me of my copy of The Shadow of the Wind. The description intrigued me, and that’s why I requested it, but it was the cover that initially grabbed me. Do you see a small resemblance too?)

The story begins in November 1932, when the body of an unknown woman is pulled from a river, and Willi Kraus is assigned to the case. However, in chapter three, Willi receives orders to find the daughter of the king of Bulgaria, who came to Berlin with her husband a few days before and has since disappeared. Willi doesn’t investigate missing person cases – he’s a homicide detective – but President von Hindenburg wants to assure the Bulgarian ruler that Germany’s best Inspektor-Detektiv is searching for the princess. Fortunately, Willi’s junior apprentice, Gunther, is dedicated and very bright, and he’s able to continue digging for evidence in the murder case while Willi tries to find the princess.

As Willi and Gunther investigate the two crimes, they find a few similarities between them – for instance, the body was found in Spandau, and the princess was last seen alive in the same area. They also find hints that both cases might be part of a larger plot: a number of people, mostly young women, who had appeared to be sleepwalking and then went missing; evacuations of dozens of people from a state hospital, with no record of where they’d been taken; and the fact that several of the missing persons had been linked with a hypnotist called the Great Gustave. All of this takes place while the German government is in turmoil, and the Nazi Party is gaining strength. Willi begins to fear for the safety of his sons and the rest of his family, and eventually for his own life. It’s difficult to know who’s telling the truth, who can be trusted.

Paul Grossman is a great storyteller, and the pacing in The Sleepwalkers is excellent. From the very first chapter, the wheels are in motion: characters introduced and gradually revealed, crimes to be investigated, and pieces of evidence located and examined. Through all this, the tentacles of the Nazi Party stretch further and further over everything in the story. Grossman weaves the elements together in ways that make sense, and keep the reader engaged.

The Sleepwalkers is definitely a thriller, but more a psychological thriller than an action story. It’s much more than a murder mystery, and not a “typical” historical novel. I’d call it a historical thriller: some of the characters, places, and plot details are fictional, but the backdrop of the Nazi Party’s machinations and the increasing horror uncovered by Willi and his allies is, sadly, based on fact. In a note at the end of the book, Grossman indicates which parts of the story are true, but adds that most of the incidents occurred several years later than the timeline in his book.

Given the difficult subject matter and disturbing events and imagery, The Sleepwalkers isn’t suitable for everyone. That said, it’s an intelligent, entertaining, sexy, scary, and thought-provoking novel. Highly recommended.

I received a paperback copy of this book from the publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I appreciate the opportunity to review this book, and hope that LT helps it to reach a wider audience.

The haul from this year's book sale!

2011-09-24T00:10:00.001-05:00

It's been a full week since Friends Night at the annual TSCPL book sale, and I'm only NOW able to post about it, although I took the photo and entered everything into my LibraryThing catalog last Saturday. Life is just too damn busy. Also, when I DO have some free time, I usually choose to read rather than blog ... and of course I can read in bed with a booklight before I go to sleep, and it would be much more difficult to write a blog post in that same position and situation. But, I digress.

The book sale was great, and I found a bunch of books that look really good, including a few that had caught my eye several times in the past, and I finally went ahead and bought them - such as Little Children, Say You're One of Them, and Bird by Bird. But Saturday, amazingly, I said to Jeff, "I think I might have too many books, I guess I should get rid of some of them." And then I started clearing out some books -- not too many, but a small pile or two! I was able to make room for some of my new acquisitions, but I still have maybe half of them to put away.

Even though I found good stuff, I didn't have the same euphoria at the sale this year that I've had in most prior years. Yet I was able to spend more than I'd expected to: after paying my $52.00, I literally had one dollar bill and a bunch of change in my wallet, and that was all. In my defense, I have to say that every item I got was $2.00, because I didn't even go near the mass market paperbacks which were only $1.00 each. Also, four of the books I got are for my mother-in-law. (Those aren't in the picture.) So my item total was 19 print books (some hardcover, some trade size paperbacks) and three audiobooks -- all of them only $2.00 each, and if you think of it from that perspective, it's quite amazing! No, I didn't get any books for the boys, but darn it, a few of them are YA and they might like them someday when they're older. Having read and loved King Dork, I'm psyched to have the audio of Andromeda Klein, and when my boys are older teenagers, I hope they might read and enjoy them both, because Frank Portman is completely hysterical!

So many things I want to write about lately, and as I said, never enough time or energy. I wrote a few pages in my notebook last night, might scan and post that later, but otherwise, I've just been reading and thinking, in between all the time working and being mom and cleaning house and just getting by. Next on the list: getting to bed, since it's midnight. But check out that photo again; man, I got some really good stuff. :-D

Journal entry for August 6

2011-08-13T15:50:00.004-05:00

One week ago, August 6, was my first time taking part in an event called Do Nothing But Read Day. Sounds right up my alley, right? Of course it is. But sometime during the afternoon, my mood took an extreme downward turn. Later in the evening, after a nap, I tried to capture my thoughts with pen and paper. The results are in the photos below.

I hope to continue using my new journal to keep my writing hand in shape. ;-) I plan to post more pages from it on here if/when I can.

Mini-review of The Shadow of the Wind

2011-08-04T20:49:00.004-05:00

This mini-review was initially posted on my local library's website. To enter the grand prize drawing for the summer reading program, adults had to read eight books and write a review of at least one of them. I wrote mine for The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (and brilliantly translated from Spanish by Lucia Graves). I started reading it before the Special Libraries Association (SLA) conference, June 12 to 16, and didn't finish until after my trip. In fact, June and July were very busy, hence my long silence from blogging, and I can't tell you how much I've missed my blog, and writing in general. I'm posting the mini-review in part to "ease back into" blogging. Anyway, I love love loved this book, and here's what I had to say about it:

Almost anyone who really loves books, and who understands the power of books and reading to transform our lives, will love the novel The Shadow of the Wind. It begins in 1945, when ten-year-old Daniel is first introduced by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

Daniel finds a novel called The Shadow of the Wind, written by a man named Julian Carax, and falls in love with the story. When Daniel tries to find other books by Carax, he learns there is a mystery surrounding the author and his books: someone else has been searching for copies of Carax's books, and burning all that he finds.

There are mysteries, romances, troubled families, true friendships, forbidden love, and murder. There are good guys and bad guys, and some characters' true colors aren't always clear. Most of the story is set in Barcelona, Spain, and the setting feels gothic, as though it's always nighttime. Yet there are lighter moments, and a lot of humorous dialogue. Ruiz Zafón weaves the disparate threads together securely, and creates a masterpiece.

Review of Half a Life: a Memoir by Darin Strauss

2011-06-01T15:15:00.001-05:00

From the back cover:

In the last month of his high school career, just after turning eighteen, Strauss is behind the wheel of his father's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, having 'thoughts of mini-golf, another thought of maybe just going to the beach.' Then, out of the blue: a collision that results in the death of a bicycling classmate and that shadows the rest of his life.

This memoir by Darin Strauss begins with one short, stark sentence: "Half my life ago, I killed a girl." He then recounts, almost frame-by-frame, the moments leading up to the auto accident that left a teenage girl dead, and changed the course of the rest of Strauss's life. And it was an accident, a tragic and seemingly random event:

The police, Celine's biking companion, and the recollection of five cars' worth of eyewitnesses all conspired to declare me blameless. No charges were filed. A police detective named Paul Vitucci later told the newspaper, 'For an unknown reason, her bicycle swerved into what you might call the traffic portion of the street, and she was immediately struck by the car. There was no way he' -- meaning me -- 'could have avoided the accident, no way whatsoever' (p. 29).

I read this book in just one day. It's a short book, yes, but it's also gripping. I want to call it a "psychological drama" of sorts. Strauss talks about what happened in the days, months, and years after the accident, in a mostly chronological narrative. But there's a constant tension inside his head, essentially a tug-of-war between his own feelings, and the way the accident impacts his life, and the overwhelming guilt he feels that someone died, and even though it wasn't "his fault," he happened to be the one at the wheel.

Strauss recounts an incident when the whole high school is gathered in the gym for an end-of-year assembly. During the event, the principal begins to talk about the tragic loss of Celine. Strauss writes:

So here was another ritual. As in all rituals, people had expectations about how it should be performed. It was as if every moment at which I could have expressed my real sense of what had happened -- my anxiety, confusion, queasy guilt; the Houdini sensation that everyone who escapes blame feels, everyone who has been pronounced blameless -- they all worked to obstruct that sense. It was blocked off by a completely different sense, that of other people watching me (p. 65).

Perhaps this example sums it up best: "But I did have a somewhat normal and fun middle-twenties, or at least a multi-faceted middle-twenties. ... And I was very mindful that Celine didn't have a fun or normal middle-twenties, or any middle-twenties at all" (p. 126). Whenever he feels pretty good, he feels guilty about feeling pretty good. His mind tries to protect itself, to keep up with everyday life and move forward, while Strauss is tormenting himself at the same time, with what-ifs, if-onlys, and a mountain of guilt.

To me, the great value in Strauss's memoir is that he puts the reader inside his mind, to allow us to feel what he feels, to come as close as we can to an awful experience without having lived it ourselves (as most of us haven't, and hopefully never will). It's not an apology, not an excuse, but an attempt to tell a whole story as honestly as he can -- from his perspective, but with great sympathy for Celine's family and friends. I think Strauss wrote the book because he had to, that he needed to write his way through the second half of his life, the accident and all that's come after, to lessen its grip on him and purge the years of guilt. Once he had written it, I don't know that he needed to publish it -- but I'm so glad that he did.

All quotes are taken from an advance reader's copy of the paperback edition, a Random House Reader's Circle publication. I received this advance copy through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to Random House and to LibraryThing for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this exceptional book.

The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone

2011-05-29T21:30:00.003-05:00

The unusual title caught my eye (of course), and I saw a lot of good buzz on Twitter when this book came out last year. Then, leading up to the release date for the paperback edition, Rebecca from The Book Lady's Blog offered up several copies of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, signed by Michele Young-Stone herself. In a turn of events nearly as shocking as if I'd been struck by lightning myself, I actually won a copy!

I started reading the book not long after the April Read-a-Thon, and finished it in about a week, on April 19. I'm embarrassed at how long it's taken me to write this review, even moreso because I won it in a giveaway, and not only did Michele Young-Stone autograph it, but she also included a handwritten card and a couple of Handbook bookmarks -- I collect bookmarks! -- and then she mailed the package to me herself! What kind of ungrateful bum am I, that I can't write a prompt review??

But here's the thing: when I finished reading the book, I had one overwhelming thought:
THIS BOOK IS AWESOMESAUCE!!!!!!!

And four words aren't enough for a review, even if one of them is a compound made-up word expressing very high praise. So the days became weeks, and I finally determined some days ago that this holiday weekend has enough "unscheduled" time that I had to write this review and get it posted.

The novel has two central characters, Becca Burke and Buckley Pitank. Their separate stories are told in alternating chapters, interspersed with quotes and short excerpts from a book called The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, which is supposedly an actual "handbook," not to be confused with the novel in your hands. Becca's story begins in 1977, when she is eight years old. She is struck by lightning outside her family's home in North Carolina. Buckley's begins in 1967, when he too is eight years old, living with his mother and grandmother in a small Arkansas town. Given the novel's title, I expected lightning to appear early in Buckley's story, as it had in Becca's, but lightning is hard to predict, and arrives in Buckley's adventures in its own time.

I loved Young-Stone's characterizations: she includes the kind of telling details and small bits of dialogue that give you a good sense of the characters without tons of exposition. After Becca is struck by lightning, she goes into the house, stunned, and tells her father, "'Dad, I got struck by lightning.'" Her father answers, without looking at her, "'If you got struck by lightning, you'd be dead.'" So right away, I'm ready to really dislike Becca's dad. (And he's not so smart, because as we learn from the "Handbook" within the Handbook, 90 percent of people who are struck by lightning survive.) When Becca is cleaned off and changed, and her father finally gets off the phone, she tells him she's ready to go out for ice cream, as they'd planned. But plans change: something has come up, and he'll have to take her another time. Yes, we learn several things about Mr. Burke, and form an opinion of him, within these three pages.

Buckley adores his mother, Abigail, and never knew his father. He's frequently bullied by other boys at school, and life in his grandmother's house isn't rosy. But he's kind and sensitive:

Buckley wanted a lot of things, but at the top of his list was for his mother to be happy. It seemed to him that she was always sad. She was a good mom -- never a mean word crossed her lips -- but like Buckley, she seldom smiled. She was fat, and it was hard for Buckley when they went places to hear people snicker and know she heard it too (p. 11).

A few warnings: there's some teen sex, infidelity, rough language, and a suicide. This isn't a young adult novel, but a novel that happens to feature kids who grow into young adulthood. Certain scenes and events could be offensive to some readers. But if you don't mind these elements -- which I felt were believable and well done, and not gratuitous -- then there are many wonderful moments to be had with this book.

This novel is like nothing else I've ever read. I loved getting to know Becca and Buckley, as well as many of the supporting characters. I wished the book were longer so that I could spend more time with them! A sequel probably wouldn't be a good idea, but I was glad that Young-Stone included a few pages at the end of the book about what happened to a lot of the characters after the main story ended. (In particular, I was thrilled to see that one character I despised "died from a sudden and painful heart attack" -- that's what you get, jerk!) The characters are quirky and interesting, and there's a lot of genuine love and friendship between them.

Last weekend, an outbreak of storms here in Kansas gave us a fright. We were at the baseball fields, waiting out a "lightning delay" in our van. As the storm strengthened and the lightning became more frequent, my husband and I wondered at the people who were still outside, a few of them running around and apparently unworried about the storm. (This was before the hail started slamming and the funnel cloud developed.) I remembered a critical rule from the Handbook:

TREAT THE APPARENTLY DEAD FIRST

Most lightning strike fatalities are caused by cardiac arrest. Begin CPR immediately!!! (p. 233)

It's funny, it's touching, it's moving and entertaining, and darn it, this book is even educational! You'll never look at lightning the same way again.

Mother's Day blurb

2011-05-08T16:47:00.001-05:00

I'm calling it a "blurb" because I don't have time to cover anything in a substantive way, but yikes it's been four weeks since my last post, and I'm at the laptop, so I'm jotting down some notes before unpacking the dishwasher.

Two weeks ago, Easter Sunday, a nearby house was on fire. Five fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were on our block, and I think some of them were here close to three hours. Frightening day, and more excitement than you ever want to have. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The family wasn't home, and a passer-by broke a window and rescued a small dog in his cage before the fire fighters arrived.

On that same "too much excitement" theme, only five days later, Jeff's mom left our house after putting the boys on the school bus, and found her home had been burglarized sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning. The front door was kicked in and broken, the place was ransacked, and essentially all the cash and change she had in the house was stolen. The burglars also found the key to the safe, got into that, and stole a container of sports trading cards that belonged to Jeff -- most of his rare and valuable ones. Other than that, there didn't seem to be things missing, just money. There have been other burglaries in the neighborhood in recent weeks, including another house on the same block about five days after my mother-in-law's house was hit. I hope the police are putting the pieces of evidence together from these crimes, as it seems most or all of them have got to be related, but so far, we haven't learned anything new.

The day-to-day has been kind of stressful -- like I've been in a kind of rut -- but also time has flown by. It seemed like April had just started, and suddenly it was over! When I've had time to read, my selections have been quite good, including The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, and I definitely need to write a review of the latter, hopefully soon. I still have pages marked in there, and in the poetry collection A Village Life by Louise Gluck, which I read during the Read-A-Thon, with quotes and passages to include in reviews and/or post on my Tumblr page. I haven't stopped reading, just haven't had time to say anything about it!

I need to at least start unpacking the dishes before Jeff gets home with groceries -- and then we'll have to decide what we're doing for dinner. I'll post again on my next day off from work ... which I'm thinking could be this coming week. ;-)

Super-Short Read-a-Thon update

2011-04-10T00:24:00.001-05:00

It's just past midnight here, and I just finished an awesome book, a novella by the late great Muriel Spark called The Driver's Seat. This is maybe my fifth Spark book overall, and man, no one else writes like she did. Her imagination is sort of creepy and twisted, and the writing is so good, the story and characters so believable, no matter how unbelievable a premise might seem. This one blew me away.

OK,I'd better stop gushing and finish my update. ;-) I started the day with the book I'd already been reading, Sula by Toni Morrison. This was only my second book by her; I read The Bluest Eye as a teenager, and remember nothing about it, so either it just didn't grab me, or I was really too young to read it. Sula is great, and also a little creepy in spots (is "creepy" my theme today? hmmm...), but the writing was excellent.

Alongside the Spark novella, the other book I started and finished today was a poetry collection by Louise Gluck (one of my favorite authors) called A Village Life. I have sticky notes on many pages, marking phrases or stanzas that I hope to share on my Tumblr page, and to help me out if I end up writing a review.

I'm not sure of my total time read; the day has been more scattered than I'd hoped it would be. But total pages read is almost 250. I also took a walk this morning, and listened to another 30-40 minutes of Pilgrim's Progress. I told Jeff that I planned to stay up as late as I wanted to, reading. But, since I have to do a lot of housecleaning tomorrow (that didn't get done today because of Read-a-Thon, or last evening because OTHER things got in the way), I think I'll grab one of the novels for my Read 20 Pages Project, start reading that in bed with the book light, and see how much longer I last. Not quite done yet, but getting close, and that's all right with me. :-)

TGI Read-a-Thon time!

2011-04-08T23:30:00.001-05:00

We’re between my sons’ basketball and baseball seasons, and tomorrow is the 24-Hour Read-a-Thon. Thus, while one of my kids has a baseball practice scheduled, Jeff will be taking him to that, and maybe taking the other one as well, and I have nothing scheduled. So I decided a couple of weeks ago to put the Read-a-Thon on my calendar, and tell my husband about it, and basically just assume that I’m going to participate. And this time, I’m gonna do it right! Unlike my previous two attempts, I have a book pile all ready, and I’m planning to do housecleaning Sunday so I can just focus on that stack … with my laptop nearby, of course. ;-)

Speaking of the book pile, here’s what I’ve got.

First up is my current read, Sula by Toni Morrison. I will definitely finish this one on Saturday.

I picked a few really short books in the hope that I can get through at least one whole book, start to finish, during the Read-a-Thon. I didn’t do it in my first two tries, but they say the third time’s the charm, right? The “Books Most Likely to Succeed,” ha ha, are:
A Village Life by Louise Gluck, one of my favorite poets, and I don’t know how I’ve had this for a year but haven’t read it yet;
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark, who always keeps me on my toes; this one is only about 100 pages; and
Turning to Fiction by Donna Masini; this is a poetry collection that I bought on impulse because I loved the title, and skimming through it, it looked promising.

In the slightly longer, middle-length novels category, I have On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, and A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ll hopefully start one or both of these, but won’t push myself to finish them.

I have The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone in the pile because – I’m so psyched to say this! -- I just won it!!! There was a giveaway hosted by Rebecca of The Book Lady’s Blog, and I won an autographed copy of the book, and at some future date, I’m to have a Skype chat with Michele Young-Stone herself!!! So I got that earlier this week, and if I don’t get to it Saturday, I’m definitely going to start it ASAP. Yay, I won something – something good that I actually wanted!!!

And finally, I have several longer novels. I realized some weeks ago that the Read-a-Thon might be a good time to “sample” some titles from my TBR Mountain, for my Read 20 Pages Project. I bet I’ve had three of the four for more than two years, and still they’re unread. I’d like to dip into all of them, but realistically, if I spend some time with two of them, reading at least 20 pages from each, I’ll be satisfied. These titles are:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen;
Carry Me across the Water by Ethan Canin;
The Lightning Keeper by Starling Lawrence; and
All Shall Be Well, and All Shall Be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka – because just like the Michele Young-Stone and Donna Masini books above, I just think that title is awesome, so the book is bound to be at least pretty good.

So those are my reading plans. I didn't sign up to cheer or anything, but I hope to visit some blogs during my reading breaks, and I know I'll be on Twitter, checking out the readathon hashtag and what readers are talking about, and tossing in a few comments here and there. I'm excited to check the Read-a-Thon web page too, and see other people's book piles. Yes, it's going to be a great day. Happy Read-a-Thon, fellow book lovers!

So many books: To Keep, or Not to Keep?

2011-03-20T21:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was the last day to use a coupon at Hastings to "trade in five, get an extra $5.00 in credit." The five items could be any combination of books, DVDs, music CDs, and games. I found nine or ten books I was willing to part with, knowing that they never take everything I bring. (If they have enough copies of it already, if it's not in their system, or if there's something about the condition that they don't like, they won't accept it.) I gave them everything but The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton, which I held back in case I couldn't get five from the rest of the batch. I was surprised at a couple of things they didn't take, including The Crazed by Ha Jin, which I'd purchased at Hastings, and which still has their green Used sticker on it. Maybe they'll have another "extra $5.00" coupon next month and I'll try that one again. They also didn't take Manufacturing Consent, which annoyed me because I've been looking at it on the shelf, unread, for years -- or sometimes maybe it was looking at ME! -- and part of me always still wanted to read it and couldn't get rid of it, and when I finally decide I don't need to keep it anymore, Hastings won't take it.

So, they took five books, and I got my bonus store credit, which is great. (I also got to keep that Edith Wharton story collection, which is also great because she's one of my favorites.) But it was really interesting, yesterday, scanning my shelves to try to pull out books to trade in. I found a few that I wanted to get rid of, but saw some problem in them, something that would prevent Hastings from taking them. I saw a couple of mass market paperbacks I really should weed out, and donate to the library for their sale; Hastings only buys used hardcovers and trade paperbacks, not the smaller mass market size. Yesterday was the first time, in a really long time, when I felt seriously ready to weed books from my personal library.

Part of this is, I'd really like to get an e-reader of some kind, but I can't justify getting one when I own so many books, especially books that I haven't read. A quick calculation using my LibraryThing numbers -- which aren't totally correct but are close enough for a good estimate -- shows almost 49% of the books in the "My Library" collection are also in the "To Read" collection. Even if I took two weeks off from work and spent those eighty hours reading, I could barely make a dent. Having gotten rid of five books yesterday (including two or three from "To Read"), I'm thinking that doing some additional weeding in the near future would be good for my psyche.

There are arguments for and against weeding -- looking mostly at books I've owned for years but haven't read. One day last summer, wanting something different and funny, I picked The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell off my shelf, and tore through it in only a few days. I loved it, and I found myself telling Jeff, "Let me read you this one part..." over and over again. And a couple of years ago, my book group read Middlemarch by George Eliot, which I'd purchased in 1994 and hadn't read; the receipt was still in the book! It was hard to read that edition -- a mass market paperback that I've since replaced with a trade size -- but once I switched over to an audio version, I fell totally in love with it. But then there are books that you buy, so sure you'll enjoy them, and when you actually read them, they just don't do it for you. I started reading The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri as soon as I got it in the mail last fall -- it arrived when I was in the hospital, and I had Jeff bring it to me ASAP. I read less than 100 pages and gave up, and was able to trade it in at Hastings.

That's the challenge for me: to look at the books I own, and decide which ones I love enough to keep on the shelves; and to look at the books I own but haven't yet read, and try to divine which ones are most likely to give me that "I-love-this-book-SOOOOO-MUUUUUUUCH!!!!!" feeling. One feature of some e-readers that I've been thinking about: the "read a sample chapter" option. If I'd read a sample of Irma Arcuri before I actually bought it (albeit used), I might have said, "Eh, I think I'll pass," saving me time and money, and a little space on my shelf. I also like the brands of readers that allow you to check out library books, another way to sample a title before "making a commitment."

How do other book lovers -- especially those who acquire more than they borrow, and acquire more books than they have time to read -- figure out what to keep, and what's best to trade or give away?

Review: The Ringer by Jenny Shank

2011-03-19T22:10:00.002-05:00

I received a bound galley of The Ringer, a debut novel by Jenny Shank, from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to The Permanent Press and to LT for the chance to read and review this book.

I decided to copy the summary from the publisher's website, because when I tried to write it myself, I felt like I was saying a lot but not getting too far. So:

Sidelined from coaching his sons' baseball team because he can't resist hollering at loafers, lollygaggers, and space cadets, Ed O'Fallon hopes focusing on his daughter's tee-ball team will calm his temper. But just as Ed prepares to guide the Purple Unicorns to their best season, his work as a Denver police officer changes his life forever.

O'Fallon bursts into a home on a no-knock warrant, expecting to find drugs, but instead encounters a man pointing a gun. Ed kills Salvador Santillano, a Mexican immigrant he had more in common with than he could imagine. Worse, Ed learns his commanding officer made a grave mistake on the warrant that will force everyone in Denver to take sides.

Separated from her husband Salvador after their worst fight ever, Patricia Maestas discovers the police have killed him. Certain her husband never sold drugs, Patricia pushes to find out the truth behind the fatal raid, even while trying to keep her volatile, grieving son Ray from following a shady friend into a north-side gang.

But Ray isn't just any disaffected adolescent —- he's a left-handed pitching phenomenon who throws a blistering fastball. Patricia hopes signing him up for a competitive league will keep him away from danger, but instead it puts them on a collision course with Ed, whose sons play in the same league on a rival team.

Patricia and Ed are unaware of the interconnections between their lives until events on the baseball field draw them together and challenge their preconceptions.

I found The Ringer to be engaging, with an interesting mix of characters and a plot that moved at a good pace. The book is written in the third-person, but presents the story from both Ed and Patricia's perspectives, in alternating chapters. Because of this narrative choice, the reader knows that Ed isn't an evil racist cop, but a decent guy who was doing his job. He feels bad after the incident, but when he learns a couple of days later that the warrant had the wrong address on it, he feels a deepening remorse. Ed begins to question himself and his occupation, and his marriage grows strained as well.

From the other side, we see Patricia digging for more information, wanting to clear her husband's name, and also being pulled by her mother and other people into a committee to "fight the city." The reader knows that Patricia wants to get to the truth, but she's reluctant to step into a spotlight. They'd been separated for several months, but we learn that Patricia had hoped to reconcile with Salvador. She partly blames herself that he wasn't living with her and their two children -- and her troubled son sometimes blames her, too.

As you can tell from the title and the plot summary above, the other big story in the book is baseball. I requested the book because the novel as a whole sounded intriguing, but what caught my attention was the description of Ed as one of those sports parents who's too involved, too loud, too critical, who seem to take all of it a little too seriously. My husband is not loud, but both of my sons (who play basketball and baseball) would agree that he's quite critical. As a sports parent, I knew there would be things I could relate to in this book. Although the boys in the novel are a couple of years older than my sons, with more skills, and in a more competitive league, that part of the book was familiar to me.

Shank packs a lot into the novel without making it feel too "stuffed." In addition to the life and work of police officers, the grief of those touched by violence and sudden death, and the world of young men's baseball, the story looks at present-day race relations, and the subtle shifts of power in local politics. There are a lot of little "everyday" moments in the book that illustrate the joys and stresses of family life. I loved that Patricia's daughter has an action figure of John Elway that everyone refers to as "El Johnway." I was right there with Ed and his family when their basement flooded. Patricia with her kids in the grocery store, Ed with his sons watching TV late one night -- Shank moved the story forward, but chose good scenes to pause for breath.

There are a few less positive things I have to mention. First, strangely, although I enjoyed reading the book, I didn't feel compelled to pick it up every day. That's partly a reflection of the moods I've been in lately, but also, it's not the kind of book where you're going, "I can't wait to find out what happens next!" Second, the writing is good, but I think the plot, the story, was stronger than the writing. I did mark a few passages that impressed me, and since this is a first novel, I think Shank's writing is sure to get even better. Third, there were a couple of questions that didn't seem to be answered, for example, the question of whether Salvador actually had a gun, whether Ed really did hear gunfire coming from someone's weapon, before he fired his own. Those nagged at me a little. Last, the book's description states that "events on the baseball field draw [the two families] together and challenge their preconceptions." But really, it seemed to take forever before the parents -- Ed and his wife Claire, and Patricia -- figure out their connection. My copy of the book has 349 pages, and Claire puts it together first, on page 242. The pacing of the book is good, but that part just took longer than I'd expected.

I also found one mistake that really confused me, that hopefully is corrected in the final publication. (As I said, I received a bound galley.) Patricia isn't sure if Salvador had an affair, because he took occasional trips to Mexico that sometimes lasted weeks, and she'd found a picture of him in his personal effects with a woman she'd never seen. On page 209, we learn the woman's name is Carmelita, and on 215, that she has a daughter named Gracielita (or Graciela). On 216, the letter is signed from Carmelita, but on that same page we have a quote, "'He says Graciela lives far away, and comes to town about once a month.'" So I'm thinking, Isn't Graciela the daughter? When the woman appears in the story later, by telephone, it's Graciela who's the mother, and Carmelita is the daughter. This is the kind of thing that you can't hang on the author, when it's the publishing/editorial staff that must have messed up, but damn, I was confused!

Overall, I enjoyed The Ringer a lot. I think it's a solid debut novel, and I hope it gets some positive attention. Jenny Shank could have a good career ahead of her! I'm interested to see what she writes next, and what other subjects she decides to tackle.

An apology of sorts

2011-03-13T15:59:00.005-05:00

On March 2, I started writing something that I expected would be a blog post. It's now March 13, and that piece still isn't done, and I've neglected to post anything else here in the interim. The conundrum is that I've really been wanting to do more writing, but no matter how many ideas I have, no matter if I've got something in progress (like that "maybe blog post"), and even if I have some extra time, as I do now when Jeff and Ryan are at baseball practice -- whatever the circumstances, it seems that I can't bring myself to get working, that I can't focus on it.

So, it's not officially a blogging hiatus, or at least it's not intended to be; it's just a bumpy stretch of road, where I might have the desire, or the time or opportunity, but never simultaneously. Right at this moment, what I want most is to take a nap! However, I have some coffee right here, so I'll keep drinking that, then get away from the computer for now and do something else to wake me up. Hopefully I can recover my energy enough to do some more reading before Jeff and Ryan come home. I'll be back when I can ...

My productive weekend

2011-02-06T21:20:00.003-06:00

I got LOTS done this weekend! I'm writing this quick post so I can reflect back on it when I'm tired at work tomorrow (ha ha), and then running around like a crazy person for the next couple of weeks. So many things on my Google Calendar, I keep getting confused about whether a specific event or appointment is this week or next week!

So, yesterday:
Brought car to shop to get an oil change and replace a headlight;
Finished all the prep work for federal income taxes, and filed them online for free! Yay for direct deposit of income tax refund, please come soon!!
Renewed my Friends of the Library membership for 2011.

Today was my mega-cleaning day:
Vacuumed all carpeted rooms except one, and also vacuumed three sections of stairs, plus a short hallway;
Dusted boys' bedroom;
Cleaned kitchen;
Cleaned main bathroom.

I probably would have done even more cleaning, like the second bathroom, but I was running low on cleaning supplies.

Not too much reading this weekend, BUT, I started a new audiobook while I cleaned today: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, downloaded to my phone from Librivox. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would; it's not as DRY as I feared it would be. I've already copied some quotes into Evernote.

Yep, it was a good weekend. Hope it's the start of a good week!
* crossing fingers *

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

2011-01-31T22:08:00.001-06:00

The first time I heard of Jhumpa Lahiri was when one of the members of my book discussion group selected Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri's debut story collection, when it was his turn to choose the book and lead the discussion. The book had recently come out in paperback, and had also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I read the book and enjoyed it, and it was a good choice for our book group, but I didn't think much about it after the meeting. I mean, I admired the writing, and I did keep the book, but I tend to like novels better than stories. I love losing myself in a wide expanse of narrative! A year or two ago, I finally listened to the audiobook of The Namesake, Lahiri's full-length novel, and it did not disappoint.

Lahiri's writing is always sharp and perceptive, so beautiful, yet so wise. It's true that the novel, and many of the stories, feature Indians who have emigrated to the United States, and their Indian-American children. Her writings explore the complexities of family, home, love, and loss, through the kaleidoscope of her own heritage. Nearly all adolescents rebel against their parents, believe that their parents don't understand them, and are embarrassed by their parents with some regularity. These things are all present in Lahiri's work, with the additional layers of meaning and complication that a "clash of cultures" can bring, when parents are traditional, and their growing children embrace American "consumer culture" as part of their struggle to fit in.

Over the past few weekends, I listened to Lahiri's second collection of stories, Unaccustomed Earth. They were longer than those in her first collection, and I found this difference very satisfying. Most of her characters are well-drawn, "round" as opposed to "flat" characters, and once I got into each new story, I liked spending more time with them, getting to know them better, than if the stories had been shorter. Part One has five stories, and covers a little over 200 pages. There's a grown daughter mourning her mother's death, and trying to reconnect with her more-distant father. An older sister introduces her teenaged brother to beer, and he ultimately becomes an alcoholic. A husband and wife attend a weekend wedding, expecting a mini-vacation away from their kids, but nothing goes as they'd planned. Bengali immigrants and Bengali-Americans are central characters in all five stories, but the themes are universal.

Part Two, called "Hema and Kaushik," contains three interlinked stories, totaling about 110 pages. As I listened, they seemed more like chapters or sections of a novella. I loved how long it was, because as it seemed a section was coming to an end, I wasn't ready, I wanted MORE -- of those characters, and of their stories. Lahiri gives the reader everything, until there's no more to tell. The "Hema and Kaushik" stories are a masterpiece, nothing less. My chest ached as the tale progressed, the shifting perspectives indicated by the alternating narrators -- first her view, then his, then hers again, back and forth until the end of the book.

I finished listening to Unaccustomed Earth yesterday afternoon, and as I wandered around my kitchen and living room, I had two thoughts. First, I asked myself, When will Jhumpa Lahiri have another book coming out? (I don't know, but I hope it's soon!)

Second, I thought, If she keeps writing this well, and publishes a book every few years, she will win the Nobel Prize. That's my prediction. Now, if you haven't yet read anything by Jhumpa Lahiri, go get started!

Reading Challenges for 2011: only two

2011-01-23T21:00:00.002-06:00

In my somewhat delayed wrap-up post for my 2010 reading challenges, I said that I planned to participate in two of last year's challenges again in 2011. One of them, the Persons of Color (POC) Reading Challenge, is up and running, but the other one, Read Your Own Books (RYOB), doesn't seem to be offered for this year, so I found a replacement.

I'm going to sign up for Level 3 again, between seven and nine books. I really think I could have completed the challenge in 2010 if I hadn't gotten Horner syndrome, and also (starting with those couple days in the hospital) spent several weeks taking a medicine that made my brain fuzzy and made it almost impossible to read. I'm off to a great start for 2011, in carving out time to read, and I'm going to make a concerted effort to have more authors of color on my radar, so when I finish a book and don't have the next one already lined up (usually the selection for my book discussion group), I'll scan my TBR Mountain for authors of color first and see what grabs my attention.

For the RYOB Challenge last year, I'd hoped to read thirty books that were already in my TBR Mountain on January first. About a week ago, searching for a replacement for RYOB, I found the Off the Shelf Challenge, hosted by Bookish Ardour. I'm glad that there's a 30-book level, because that seems like a reasonable goal for me again -- and as I said above, if I can maintain a reading pace close to what I've done these last three weeks, I'll make good progress. Level 4 is 50 books, which I haven't reached in any of the last three years (2008 is when I started keeping track), so I'm selecting Level 3, "Making a Dint," which is 30 books.

Sometimes other challenges pique my interest -- I did look for another poetry challenge for 2011, but didn't find one -- but these two are all the commitments I'm planning to make. Reading more of the books I already own is a goal that just makes sense -- plus it's really convenient and doesn't cost anything! Reading more books by persons of color exposes me to different perspectives, enriching not just my reading, but my ways of thinking, my whole interior world.

A nip here, a tuck there, thanks to Bloggiesta!

2011-01-22T10:30:00.002-06:00

Jeff and the boys are at basketball practice, and I confess that the 9-to-11am Saturday morning practice is starting to spoil me. They leave around 830am, don't get home till about 1130am, and I have three glorious hours to do things like play around on the computer or read. This morning, I've been tweaking my blog, thanks to Bloggiesta.

Bloggiesta is an event hosted by Natasha at Maw Books. It's a kind of blogging marathon -- and participants might catch up on reviews or other posts, or write a few extra posts ahead of time for "a rainy day" -- but it's also an opportunity to spiff up your blog, add new buttons, update the blog roll, find and fix (or delete) broken links, organize your feed reader, and get tips from other bloggers, either on their blogs, or by chatting with them on Twitter. It's all about improving your blog, helping and learning from each other, and improving all the tasks and processes related to your blogging experience. (For book bloggers, updating their book info in LibraryThing or GoodReads counts!)

I did some laptop stuff last night, not specifically blog-related, but I did work on the Evernote account I created last week. I hope to fill that with quotes and other good pieces of information or pearls of wisdom that I want to remember and keep on hand. So, there's at least a desire and intent to get a little more organized. (I also deleted some super-old messages from my Gmail account, and THAT felt good.) This morning, I spent about 90 minutes tweaking some little things on my blog, and reading other bloggers' advice and suggestions. I added a copyright blurb to my RSS feed posts, and added a subscription to my own blog in Google Reader, since I had no idea what it looked like before. (Good news: it looks okay!) I switched my comment notification from the home e-mail account to Gmail so I'll usually see them sooner. I put a Creative Commons license in my blog footer. I modified the LibraryThing widget in my sidebar, and tweaked my "Friends & Favorites" list.

It's nearly 1030am now, and I'm thinking if I get on the treadmill soon, I might be able to "buy" some goodwill from Jeff and the boys, and get more time with the blog later today or tomorrow. Now that I'm looking at it closely, there's definitely more I'd like to do -- update the Blog Roll tab being first, and writing posts for the two challenges I plan to join this year. (I did add buttons for the challenges this morning -- yay for me! -- but that doesn't make it official.) I'm going to add myself to the list of Bloggiesta participants, and cross my fingers I can get another couple hours for blog cleanup this weekend. To the other Bloggiesta participants: Ole! And happy blogging!

Let's Take the Long Way Home: a Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell

2011-01-15T23:00:00.004-06:00

Yesterday morning, I woke around 4am and couldn't get back to sleep. By 445am, I'd decided to get up and start my next book. I'd first heard of Let's Take the Long Way Home in late summer or early fall, on an episode of the Books on the Nightstand podcast, in which Michael Kindness gave it a glowing recommendation. I remember I was walking toward my mother-in-law's house as I listened -- specifically, in the area of 29th and Gage. He said it was Gail Caldwell's memoir about her friendship with fellow writer Caroline Knapp -- and I was instantly alert, because a few years ago, I bought, read, and loved a book by Knapp called Appetites: Why Women Want. I recognized Caldwell's name, but wasn't familiar with her. It was the chance to learn more about Knapp that drew me in, as well as Michael Kindness saying that the book was a picture of how full and all-encompassing a friendship between two women can be, and also explored the dark corners of addiction. Both Caldwell and Knapp were alcoholics, though both were sober by the time they became friends. After the podcast, Caldwell's book was quickly added to my "must-have" list.

So, I started reading it yesterday, obscenely early in the morning, and got about thirty pages in before work. I didn't read at work, but made some more progress on it last evening. Today, Saturday, I did some reading this morning, then cleaned the kitchen, and eventually got back to the book. This afternoon, I finished the book through copious tears. I was up in the bedroom by myself, while Jeff and the boys and Grandma watched the KU game in the living room. At one point, Jeff came up and suggested I stop reading for a while and do something else, and I said no. When he asked why not, I sobbed, "Because I don't want to!" I felt justified in this decision: three-day weekend, kitchen already cleaned, end of the book coming ever closer. Jeff said he didn't understand, and I agreed, he didn't.

Since I read it so quickly, and finished it during a weekend where I have some extra time, I thought, "I need to post a blog about it, I need to write a review." But then, the idea of writing a review of this book seemed akin to reviewing pieces of Gail Caldwell's life -- some painful, mainly her battles with alcoholism; and many precious and beautiful, memories of her friendship with Caroline, and the bonds both shared with their beloved dogs. Truly, the writing is so honest and raw, that the book feels alive, and lived in -- not just recounting parts of Caldwell's life, but opening the door on those scenes, and letting the reader into them. That's the best review I can give of Caldwell's memoir: I felt like I was living it with her.

Though Gail and Caroline first met at a party, it was several years later, when they happened to run into one another at a pond in Cambridge, Mass., that they began their friendship. Both single women who were independent and used to solitude, both childless, each had acquired a dog who became companion, child, best friend. When they met that day at the pond, Gail knew Caroline had been doing a lot of public appearances to promote her recently published memoir, Drinking: a Love Story. Caroline later said she was relieved that Gail "was more interested in her dog than her book sales" and Gail writes, "We were like new moms in the park, trading vital bits of information about our charges that was enthralling only to us" (p. 17).

They bonded over this shared love of their dogs, and began walking together, a “pack of four,” every day. Caldwell writes:

We ran the dogs for hours in those woods outside of town, and in other woods, searching out gorgeous reserves of forests and fields all over eastern Massachusetts. We walked the beaches that autumn, and the fire trails in winter, carrying liver snaps for the dogs and graham crackers for the humans. We walked until all four of us were dumb with fatigue. The dogs would go charging through the switchbacks while Caroline and I walked and talked – over time so much and so deeply that we began referring to our afternoon-long treks as analytic walks.

“Let’s take the long way home,” she would say when we’d gotten back to the car, and then we would wend our way through the day traffic of Somerville or Medford, in no hurry to separate. … Then we would go inside our respective houses and call each other on the phone. (p. 19)

One of my favorite scenes in the book occurs after Gail purchases her first house. Caroline had gone to open houses with her, helped her weigh the pros and cons of different locations, and offered suggestions as needed. When the purchase is made and Gail arrives at her new house,

I was standing on the front porch of what was now my house, fiddling with the keys, dumb with fatigue and vague apprehension. Inside lay a near gut job of months of renovation. I heard someone drive up behind me and turned to see Caroline and Morelli [Caroline’s boyfriend, and later her husband] at the curb in Caroline’s Toyota RAV, both of them grinning and waving at me to wait up. I got the door unlocked just as Caroline vaulted up the front steps. And while Morelli held on to the dogs and laughed, she picked me up – I outweighed her by ten pounds – and hoisted me, like a sack of grain, over the threshold. (p. 118)

Caroline was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in the spring of 2002. She was hospitalized with a second bout of pneumonia when they found the cancer, which had metastasized to her brain and liver. She went home when she was strong enough, and she and Morelli got married. Soon after, Gail had an engagement to speak at a commencement in Texas, and reluctantly left town for a four-day trip. While she was gone, Caroline suffered a series of bleeds in the brain, and could no longer speak. Gail cut her trip short to get back to Massachusetts. Caldwell writes,

We had spent years talking – talking when other people would have given up, teasing apart feelings and conversations and the intricacies of daily life. Now she couldn’t talk anymore and so I didn’t either; our narrative became a choreography of silence. I would spend hours at the end of her bed, not knowing much of the time if she even knew I was there. But Caroline and I had begun our friendship with a bond devoted to the elegant truths of nonverbal language: the physicality and hand signals and eye contact that dialogue with an animal entailed. When she had first fallen ill, I had brought to the hospital a T-shirt that she loved, from the Barking Dog Luncheonette in New York, with SIT! STAY! written on the back. I knew all about sit-stay, and how straightforward and essential it was, and so that was what I did. I sat and I stayed. (p. 141-142)

Let’s Take the Long Way Home is beautiful, and heartbreaking, and I love it.

The last 2010 reading round-up

2011-01-08T11:00:00.002-06:00

Yes, the year 2010 is done, and I feel like all the bloggers I follow have written their Year in Review posts, with lists, stats, and general thoughts on their reading for the past year...and I'm finally just starting mine. But in the space of life, what's a few days' delay, really? Not much.

I joined three challenges for 2010, and I "failed" all of them.

For the RYOB (Read Your Own Books) Challenge, I hoped to read thirty books that I already owned but hadn't read. I was pretty strict with myself on this one: they had to be books I'd acquired before 2010, books that were already tagged "tbr" in my LibraryThing catalog when I wrote my blog post about the challenge on January 6. I used the tag "RYOB 2010" in LT to track my progress, and I only read 23 of those tbr books this past year.

If I'd counted books I purchased during 2010 and then read, however, I'd be pretty close to my goal. Books like The Passage, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Push, and The Zen of Eating were purchased this past year and read within a couple months. So I didn't do too badly, overall. I'm planning to participate again in 2011, and already have an "RYOB 2011" tag in LT.

For the POC (Persons of Color) Reading Challenge, I planned to read between seven and nine books written by persons of color, and/or featuring characters who are persons of color. I ended up reading only six books written by persons of color, although I did listen to the audiobook of The Help as well. This challenge finally got me to read the two Zadie Smith novels that were waiting on my shelves, and I've since purchased The Autograph Man and hope to read that in 2011. I checked out Smith's essay collection, Changing My Mind, from the library during the summer, and it's not included in my count as I dipped in and out and skipped around and didn't read the whole thing, but I've just fallen in love with Zadie Smith's writing this year, thanks to the POC Reading Challenge. I will join again for 2011, and I will do better!

My third challenge was the Clover, Bee, and Reverie Poetry Challenge. I hoped to read eight books of poetry, and only read six, and didn't read two books that were "connected" in some way (author, theme, etc.). I don't feel too badly about this one, though, partly because the main website for the challenge wasn't updated throughout the year. It's hard to be motivated about a challenge when you aren't connecting with others who are also involved, and when the person(s) hosting the challenge are absent from the challenge's website. Something like RYOB doesn't need to be as social, it's mostly just me and the books in my house, but for most challenges, there's gotta be something more, and I just didn't find it in this one. I might join a different poetry challenge for 2011 if one catches my eye.

I have to stop here and say, I'm so thrilled that Kyle's basketball practice runs from 9am to 11am, and that Jeff took Ryan along as well. It's 1035am, and I can probably finish this (gigantic) post before they get home -- hooray!!! And now back to the blog post already in progress. ;-)

My reading slowed down a lot in the last few months of the year. During the weeks when I was taking Topamax (late Sept. and much of Oct.), it was very hard to read anything, and I'm so glad that migraines weren't my main problem, so I was able to stop taking it. Any medication that makes my mind too fuzzy to even READ is simply not worth taking. Between the illness and doctor visits, all that uncertainty, it was often hard to focus on my reading. I think I could have gotten at least two or three more books read this past year if I hadn't developed Horner Syndrome, and spent those weeks on Topamax. In 2011, I resolve not to take medications that keep me from reading! :-D

Finally, the list of books I finished in 2010. I hoped to include The Sparrow on this list, and a second listen to the audio of The Help, but I didn't quite make it, so those will be my first two for 2011. The ones I enjoyed most are marked with an asterisk.

1. The Book Borrower by Alice Mattison, audio, Jan. 3
2. Against Love Poetry by Eavan Boland, Jan. 5*
3. The Children by Edith Wharton, Jan. 25
4. Once upon a Time When We were Colored by Clifton L. Taulbert, Feb. 10
5. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, audio, Feb. 10*
6. The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance by Audre Lorde, Feb. 14
7. Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, Feb. 27
8. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, print & audio, March 13
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, March 14*
10. Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater, March 18
11. The Keep by Jennifer Egan, audio, March 31*
12. King Dork by Frank Portman, April 17*
13. The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing edited by Kevin Young, LT Early Reviewer (LTER) book, April 19*
14. Versed by Rae Armantrout, April 25
15. On Beauty by Zadie Smith, audio, April 25*
16. A Worldly Country by John Ashbery, May 2
17. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, May 6
18. Jack in the Pulpit by Cynthia Riggs, audio, May 9
19. The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald, edited by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, May 19 (LTER book)
20. March by Geraldine Brooks, started in audio but finished in print on May 22
21. The Nerve by Glyn Maxwell, May 30
22. Candide by Voltaire, June 5
23. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, audio, June 26
24. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, audio, July 1*
25. White Teeth by Zadie Smith, July 4
26. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, July 11*
27. E. M. Forster (a Brief Lives biography) by Richard Canning, July 18 (LTER book)
28. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Aug. 1*
29. The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, Aug. 3*
30. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Aug. 21, audio*
31. The Passage by Justin Cronin, Aug. 25*
32. Nightwork by Christine Schutt, Sept. 3
33. Anagrams by Lorrie Moore, Sept. 10*
34. The Giver by Lois Lowry, Sept. 16*
35. Great House by Nicole Krauss, Sept. 26 (LTER book, ARC)
36. The Reef by Edith Wharton, audio, Sept. 27
37. The Zen of Eating by Ronna Kabatznick, Oct. 9*
38. The Bridge of Dreams by Robert N. Lawson, Oct. 28
39. Fury by Salman Rushdie, Nov. 14
40. The Help by Kathryn Stockett, audio, Nov. 14*
41. Push by Sapphire, Nov. 20
42. A Pound of Paper by John Baxter, Nov. 28

As I look through the list, I wish it were longer, but mostly I think, Man, I read some really good books last year! I hope 2011 is more of the same: good books, but more of them! ;-)

"And ransom captive Israel..."

2010-12-27T21:40:00.003-06:00

We went to church on Christmas Eve afternoon with Jeff's mom, and it was a simple, lovely, musical service. There was a band, maybe five musicians, and the service began with everyone standing to sing a few well-known hymns. Then everyone sat down, there was another song or two, and then a woman came to the microphone to do a short reading from the Bible.

I'm not a religious person, and I've really never been a religious person. But, I have my moments -- thoughts and situations that truly move me, often on both a spiritual and a human level, if that makes any sense. At Christmas Eve mass, the reading from the Gospel was about the Angel Gabriel visiting Mary, telling her that she would bear a child even though she was a virgin, and that her Son would change the world. I listened to the reading as a mother of two young sons. Imagine being pregnant, and being told that your baby will grow into an amazing and incredible person, someone who will have a positive impact on people's lives, even hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. Whether you believe the prophecy, or you think you must be losing your marbles, it's got to be overwhelming to think that the baby who won't stop kicking you and who makes you have to pee every half hour, will grow into a man who will change the history of the world.

It's probably no big surprise that, having these kinds of thoughts, I began to get teary-eyed during the reading. Right after the reading, it happened: one or two of the musicians started playing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," one of my favorite hymns, dating back to my Roman Catholic childhood. It did me in. I was mouthing the words even though the musicians weren't singing, and tears were running down my cheeks. I was sitting on the end of our row, and Ryan was next to me. He'd been leaning on me sometimes, or holding my hand. When he saw that I was crying, he kept looking at me, touching me, and once he wiped the tears from my face. The band started singing the hymn, but I don't remember if everyone sang; I don't think so, I think it was only the musicians.

Thinking of the years I went to Catholic Church always reminds me of my dad. Thinking of motherhood made me think of my mother, too, and that she only passed away 14 months ago. I wondered what my sons will be like when they grow up. Ryan didn't ask why I was crying, just leaned against my arm and held my hand. (There's some hope yet, maybe he'll turn out all right!) And Jeff, ever the caretaker, yet seemingly unaware at times that his wife's thoughts and emotions are too complicated to explain, began to whisper, "Are you okay?" and "What's the matter?" Thankfully we were in the back row of the balcony, where few people outside my family would notice me -- and the church was mostly dark anyway.

So it was Mary and Gabriel, Jesus the Savior, the two beautiful yet frustrating boys whom Jeff and I brought into the world, the mother and father (now gone, both of them) who brought me into the world, and Grandma without Papa, and the idea that the only reason Jesus was born was to die, that He died so we could live, so hopefully our loved ones aren't really gone, but are waiting peacefully for us to join them... It was ALL of those things that did me in, and this:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Those who are in pain, who are imprisoned, whose lives are constant struggle, who grow closer each day to losing all hope: Rejoice! You will be saved, your suffering will end!

I'm not a religious person, not really, but the message touches me deeply, and I try to believe it. And I've always, always loved that song.

News & notes: books, housecleaning, fixing the PC, Black Friday

2010-12-01T20:10:00.002-06:00

I took today off work to get some things done that I hadn't gotten done last weekend, since I was fighting a cold and not sleeping well (due to stuffiness, etc.), and though I got some extra rest in the morning after the boys left for school, the rest of my day was spent dusting and vacuuming. Yes, my house desperately needed my attention, more than my blog, more than my backlog of e-mail, and what have you. I listened to two old episodes of That's How I Blog, a Blog Talk Radio show hosted by Nicole, from the book blog Linus's Blanket. It made the dusting part of my day very enjoyable. But alas, I didn't do any reading. Or blogging, or blog-hopping and commenting. And I didn't spend any time on LibraryThing. :-( I really hope to catch up on LT around the holidays, when the boys will have no sports, no school, no homework, and we'll have a couple more days out of work.

Books I've read the past couple weeks: Push by Sapphire, which was often disturbing, ultimately inspiring, and so good; A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter, which was a really fun read; and I've started reading the very well-reviewed novel The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, and am enjoying it so far. As you can probably tell because I said I listened to podcasts today, I don't have an audiobook going at the moment ... but soon, I'll decide which one to go with next.

I spent a lot of time during last weekend -- the long Thanksgiving weekend, when I was sick with this cold -- backing up the boys' computer and re-installing their Windows Vista. I'd never actually done that kind of thing before, only re-installed Windows XP on our machine a few years ago when our hard drive croaked and we had to get a new one and sorta start from scratch. The whole backing up wasn't too bad, but every damn time I tried to restore their system from the backup, Vista gave me an error message, "The Backup and Restore, blah blah, has stopped working." So I couldn't select the extra hard drive (they have a C and a D, two partitions, I guess), and when I saved MOST of the 66 backup files from D onto a blank DVD (checking every single damn file to see which ones were most critical, since I would have needed two DVDs to get all 66 parts), I couldn't select the DVD drive either --- it just kept giving me that freaking error message. So finally, I just started copying pieces from the backup files over onto the now-mostly-clean C drive -- moving documents, favorites, etc., folder by folder, or file by file. I wish I'd just checked with a computer-savvy friend or co-worker to fix it for us, but I was obsessed with getting it done ASAP. I must have done more good than harm, because the thing that was driving us crazy -- the endless "installing updates" on shutdown, that wouldn't actually install the updates OR shut down the computer, so we'd finally give up and push the power button -- has not recurred since then. AND, copious updates have been installed or re-installed without hanging up the system.

Black Friday: Kyle went out shopping with Jeff and Stacy to Wal-Mart, and that lucky kid got an iPod Touch 4th generation. I also got an iPhone for Jeff as an early anniversary gift, so Kyle spent most of the weekend trying to "FaceTime" with his dad. It's a little goofy making "FaceTime" calls to people who are in the same house. I'm staying with my 2nd generation Touch since it has all my apps, e-books, data, music, & podcasts on it. I mean, like I really want to start over with a new period calendar app after last month's period from hell. (See post about Coumadin, a few weeks ago. On the 13th day, God had mercy on Marie and the period finally slowed down & stopped. Marie was overjoyed, but is not looking forward to the next period & expects it to be just as bad as the last.) Jeff and Kyle both went with me to Hastings later in the morning, where I didn't go TOO hog-wild over books: I got two used books for me, 40% off of each, two used books Ryan had requested, plus two new copies of young adult books because all the kids' & YA books were buy one, get one free, with a 4-hour coupon. The used books I got were The Autograph Man by the superb Zadie Smith, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the book group's selection for January. (We're taking December off.) The YA books were Before I Die by Jenny Downham, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

I have to take a minute to thank Jeff. He had a basketball game tonight, and because it was an early game (630pm), he let the boys go with him so they could watch his game. After they came home, he said he'd take them out to get gas in the car, and stop by Grandma's so they could visit, while he brought her van over to the gas station to fill it up. There's no way I could have written this post -- and it surely wouldn't have been this lengthy -- if he hadn't taken the boys out tonight, TWICE. I told him I'd be done when they got back, so I'm going to close here to get a head start, before the garage door signals their return. ;-)

Super-short update on books & reading

2010-11-14T21:49:00.004-06:00

Over Saturday and Sunday, I managed to do some amount of cleaning in every room of our house. I was listening to the audio version of The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and it was fabulous. While dusting bookshelves, I started pulling out books to remove from my collection -- but not too many of them, I admit. I finished the audiobook today, and also read the last ten pages this morning of the novel Fury by Salman Rushdie. (I enjoyed it, but didn't love it, so I already have it in my small "to be weeded" pile.) So for several hours today, I've been "between books," and am not sure what to pick up next.

Finishing those two books, dusting the shelves and weeding some items from my collection, I began reflecting on my "Read 20 Pages Project" (R20PP). I haven't done as much "sampling" as I'd planned to do when I came up with that project idea. Today, I started thinking, I'd like to take a day off from work and spend the whole thing by myself, reading a chapter or a handful of pages from lots of my TBR books, to get a feel for them, and decide if I really need to keep them, if I think I'd actually enjoy them enough to keep them on the shelves and spend more time with them in the not-too-distant future. Since 2008, I've been keeping lists on LibraryThing of how many books I read each calendar year. Now I'm thinking, I shouldn't focus on finishing so many, and should sample more of them. Perhaps that will be a plan for the new year, which will be coming sooner than we expect: instead of trying to read 40 or 50 books, maybe I'll make a resolution to "sample" or "examine" 75 or 100.

Just some bookish ideas floating through my head. Getting late, gotta get ready for bed.

This is your life. And THIS is your life on Coumadin.

2010-11-11T19:54:00.002-06:00

For about three weeks, I've been taking the drug warfarin (approximate pronunciation WORF-uh-rin), the generic version of Coumadin. Coumadin is an anticoagulant, meaning it thins your blood to relieve blood clots in the body, and/or to prevent them from forming. It's a powerful medicine, salvation for some people, but dangerous and potentially deadly as well. I'm taking it to reduce the chance of developing emboli in my carotid artery, or a blood clot in my brain, due to my carotid artery dissection. For me, Coumadin is reducing the likelihood of my having a stroke or other problems caused by the dissection. I'm very glad that Coumadin (warfarin) exists, and I'm grateful to be taking it, but man, it sure requires some adjustments in everyday activities.

The picture above, of my arms, illustrates two important things to know about Coumadin. First, you will bruise easily. Second, you'll need to get blood drawn regularly to monitor your Protime/INR level, which indicates how fast your blood clots. I had mine drawn twice a week for the first two weeks, and started a once-per-week schedule today. I've been on 2.5 mg per day for about ten days, and am hoping the results of today's lab will be in the right range and not require a change of dose. Getting labs drawn regularly (more often in the first days), and adjusting the dosage, also means playing phone tag with your doctor's office, to find out what dose you need to take that night or the next day. Again, settling into a "routine" of having lab work weekly or bi-weekly, should greatly lessen the amount of phone tag you'll need to play.

Let's briefly review number one, "you will bruise easily." When taking an anticoagulant, you need to be more careful of yourself. I've been avoiding the main area of the basketball court, before and after Kyle and Ryan's games, trying to stay along the edges of the court, and watching for any loose balls coming my way. I'm trying to be more careful in the tight spaces around the house, to avoid bumping into furniture. Basically, I'm paying more attention to what I do, and the area I occupy, physically, at any given time, to avoid risky situations or unsafe movements as best I can.

The handout I got with my prescription is full of precautions. For instance, I have to avoid eating "large amounts of leafy green vegetables," and other foods that contain a lot of Vitamin K, because "too much Vitamin K can lower the effect of warfarin." This is the first situation in my life where being a "vegephobic" is a good thing for me! Seriously, it doesn't say to avoid these things, but not to go overboard on things like lettuce, cabbage, or spinach. But, it DOES say, in bold type, to "avoid drinking cranberry juice or eating cranberry products." No explanation, just avoid them!

I knew already that people taking Coumadin shouldn't take aspirin, but I didn't realize that ibuprofen could also interact with it. I'm now taking extra strength acetaminophen for my headaches, and took the ibuprofen out of my purse. Of course, I have to be extra-careful to try not to cut myself, and be ready to get a bandage and apply a lot of pressure to the cut if I do. Several people have already mentioned that, surrounded by books and paper, I need to watch out for paper cuts. I can't tell if they're kidding. I seriously doubt that a paper cut could do me in, but as I said, I know where to get a bandage in a hurry.

Finally, my absolute biggest problem with taking this medicine, and I don't care if this is "too much information," is how it's affecting my menstrual period. It's no surprise that a blood thinner would have some impact on my period. I was already having a couple of really heavy days each month, and I've also had some between-period spotting, off and on for over two years now. Sure enough, days two and three of my period, last Friday and Saturday, were extra-heavy, and that was normal. Days four and five weren't bad, somewhat lighter. Before Coumadin, my period was usually five days, occasionally six, but the last two days were always lighter. With Coumadin, day six was heavier than day five, and day seven was some of the heaviest bleeding I can ever recall having. Today is day eight, and not as bad as yesterday, but no picnic, I can tell you that. I still felt globs of blood coming out of me, multiple times today -- TODAY, on DAY EIGHT, for crying out loud!

I called my doctor -- my regular doctor -- to touch base with her about it today, and when the nurse called me back, she assured me it's to be expected. I told her if I'm still bleeding sometime next week, they'll be hearing from me again, and she said I could call Monday if I still have it. Monday -- that will be day twelve. I bought a 44-pack of "Super - Long" Always pads yesterday (did I mention I'm using larger pads exclusively now? I don't trust the regular size to handle the flood), and it says right on the package, "3-month supply!" and I thought, "Let's see how fast I can blow through these!" I'd already almost used up the two 16-packs I got last week. So I feel gross, but also very annoyed, because really, what constitutes "heavier than normal" bleeding or a "prolonged" menstrual period? I was hoping that a couple of super-heavy days might mean a SHORTER period, and instead I have to hold out till Day Twelve, and then ... I don't know, find out if I've become anemic? See how much money I've spent on maxi pads by then? Have someone tell me I should have called the doctor sooner? Or, as long as I'm still functioning -- not fainting, sleeping, confused, or soaking through my clothes -- maybe they'll check my hematocrit, verify it's all right, and say, "Just hang in there!"

So, I guess my point is, if your doctor feels that you really need to take an anticoagulant, prepare to make a few changes in your lifestyle or everyday activities, perhaps small changes in the foods you eat if you love cranberries or green leafy vegetables, and know the dangers of taking Coumadin, but that your doctor feels the benefits outweigh the risks in your situation. And if you're a woman of childbearing age who still has menstrual periods, stock up on those feminine supplies, because honey, you're gonna need them.

What we learned in Kansas City (from the handsome doctor)

2010-11-06T14:43:00.011-05:00

Jeff and I went to Kansas City on Wednesday, to consult with an interventional radiology specialist about my condition. The neurologist I’ve been seeing here in Topeka referred me to KC to review my case, and my various X-rays, to determine whether more films need to be taken (and if so, when), and what other steps might be necessary.

Apparently I never spelled out, here on the blog, what’s actually causing my Horner syndrome. I had my additional MRI and CT scans on October 20, and met with the neurologist on October 21. The CT angiogram of my neck showed a dissection in my left internal carotid artery. The explanation in Wikipedia is the clearest I’ve seen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotid_artery_dissection

Carotid artery dissection is a separation of the layers of the artery wall supplying oxygen-bearing blood to the head and brain, and is the most common cause of stroke in young adults. (While generic dissection can imply any kind of tear, cut or other breach in a tissue, in this context of vascular medicine, dissection is a blister-like de-lamination between the outer and inner walls of a vessel, generally originating with a partial leak in the inner lining.)

I started taking Coumadin that same evening – an anti-coagulant to thin my blood, to reduce the chance of clots forming along that artery and moving up into my brain, and help prevent me from having a stroke or other less severe, but still serious, vascular problems.

Looking at my films on the disk we brought, Dr. Martin (the interventional radiology neurologist specialist) agreed with the course of treatment my neurologist had begun: continue on Coumadin, and repeat the CT angiogram about six to eight weeks after the first one, to make sure the dissection hasn’t gotten any worse. As long as that result is good, we’ll carry on with the Coumadin, and go back to KC in five to six months so Dr. Martin can do an angiogram to make sure the dissection has healed. If it has, I can stop taking the Coumadin, but will then switch to aspirin, and probably need to take that daily for the rest of my life. If the dissection is worse, we'd do the angiogram sooner, and decide if a stent would be appropriate.

Other things Jeff and I learned from Dr. Martin:

• We can’t just look at my left eye to see if the dissection is healed, because there’s a good chance my left eye and eyelid might never “go back to normal.”

• I probably have fibromuscular dysplasia, or FMD, which Dr. Martin said “sounds worse than it really is.” I think the angiogram will confirm whether or not I have it. He said FMD is quite common, and it’s usually discovered incidentally when they’re checking something else.

• How did my dissection happen? Although Wikipedia uses the terms “spontaneous” and “traumatic,” leading me to think my case was “spontaneous,” Dr. Martin said it probably happened the week before my Horner syndrome symptoms appeared, when I had stomach flu. I spent all of that Saturday, September 18, throwing up. I barely touched anything all day, not even sips of liquid until pretty late in the afternoon, but still I was heaving, off and on, for close to 12 hours. The next day, my upper chest was sore. The force of the vomiting likely caused the dissection – and perhaps I was “predisposed” to that injury because of the (probable) FMD. Anyway, it wasn’t really a trauma, but probably falls into the “traumatic” category.

• But wait … the stomach flu was a full week before the Horner’s symptoms; how can that have caused the dissection? We already knew that Horner syndrome is pretty rare, and yet it can be caused by a wide variety of conditions. A dissection in the carotid artery, whatever the cause, is more common, but rarely results in Horner syndrome. So, the dissection could certainly have occurred on September 18, with the Horner’s symptoms appearing a week later.

• Speaking of my left eye, when Dr. Martin began his examination, shining the light into one eye, then the other, he said something like, “It’s too bad we don’t have any med students here today; they could see a great example of Horner syndrome.” Even though I’ve known for weeks that’s what it is, it’s still really cool to hear a specialist say, “Yes, that’s what you have.” And, he told me he HAS had Horner’s patients in the past, which gave me an even greater sense of security. I haven’t always been impressed by my neurologist in Topeka, but I think he referred me to a good department, where they see this condition a lot and know what to do.

• If the affected artery were to end up completely blocked, it’s still possible I could function normally and continue in decent health. Dr. Martin said there are four channels, and if one no longer worked, sometimes the amount of blood circulating through the other three is enough to keep the brain healthy.

• I can continue most of my everyday activities, and do moderate exercise, without much concern. He said I should “avoid heavy lifting that puts a strain on” my neck, and avoid exercise and sports that could do the same. He gave ballet as an example – but we all know I wasn’t doing that anyway. ;-) But I should be able to get back on the treadmill anytime for some long walks, with no problems.

• Things that could signal a worsening of my condition: if I suddenly can’t see colors, or have blind spots – and these things would only happen with my left eye. If the problem isn’t with the artery or nerves, but in my brain, it would affect the left side of my brain, and therefore the right side of my body.

• Did I mention Dr. Martin is really nice-looking? He’s soooo cute, actually reminded me of the “love-of-my-life” guy I met and dated when I was 20 and he was 19. I got this picture of the good doctor from the hospital website, but he looks better in real life – and his hair is a bit longer and thicker now than in the photo. Yes, he’s very easy on my asymmetrical eyes!

I’m sure there are other things I’m not recalling now – three days later – but I think I hit all the main points. I’ll post more about the injury and its treatment as things progress and I learn more, and any more developments or changes in my condition. But overall, the consultation eased my mind, and made me feel less worried about the outcome. And I feel really lucky that I developed Horner syndrome, so we could be proactive and work to prevent a stroke or other vascular illness or injury. I got a warning sign, where so many people don’t, and I had a couple of doctors who were determined to help me get to the bottom of it. Some Higher Power must be looking out for me, again. * waving * Thanks a lot, up there!

A video & picture of me, & more info about Horner Syndrome

2010-11-01T20:15:00.002-05:00

Jeff recorded this video of me about a week ago. It's my introduction to the uncommon condition called Horner Syndrome.

I didn't say anything in my video about the third symptom that's usually mentioned, an absence of sweating on some areas of the affected side of the face, because unless it's deep summer or you're exercising a lot, you're not likely to notice it.

Because you can't really see my different-sized pupils in the video, here's another cropped photo of me, with my glasses on, that really shows the difference:

There are a handful of sites where I found helpful and interesting information when I started researching my symptoms, and then Horner Syndrome specifically. The main page for Horner Syndrome on the Mayo Clinic site is a very good place to start:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/horner-syndrome/DS01137

If you click from that first page over to "Causes," you'll see a few of the biggies (stroke, tumor, cluster or migraine headaches), but also this straightforward explanation of what the "sympathetic nerves" are, and why only one side of the face is affected:
Sympathetic nerves in your face don't pass directly from your brain to your face. Instead, they start in an area of your brain known as the hypothalamus, travel through the brainstem and then down your spinal cord to enter your chest. From your chest, they go back up your neck, next to the main arteries that deliver blood to your head (carotid arteries), into your skull and then to your eyes. If the nerves are injured at any point along this route, Horner syndrome can result. Signs and symptoms of Horner syndrome usually occur on only one the side of your face because separate sympathetic nerves control each side.

A good article from eMedicine with fairly technical/medical terms, but includes some historical information, and more details about physical characteristics and the wide range of causes -- including mine, carotid artery dissection:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/279394-overview

A "Can you identify this condition?" piece from a Canadian medical journal:
Question: http://171.66.125.180/cgi/content/full/56/5/439-a
Answer: http://171.66.125.180/cgi/content/full/56/5/443
(Note that the link on the "Answer" page goes to a different "Question," where you'll see a picture of "hairy tongue," which I am so glad I don't have! Blech!!)
(Citation: Johnson, Davin; and Sanjay Sharma. "Ophthaproblem: Can you identify this condition?" Canadian Family Medicine, Vol. 56, No. 5, May 2010, p.439ff)

This is the abstract for an article with the specified objective, "To demonstrate the importance of thorough investigation of patients with Horner syndrome, and to explain the relevant anatomy." It's a recent case study, as the article was just published this year.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7844122
(Full citation: Costello, D.; J. Salmon; C. Milford; P. Pretorius. "A rare cause of Horner Syndrome." The Journal of Laryngology & Otology (2010), 124: 925-927; Cambridge University Press)

A "pictorial essay" from a medical journal, with complicated medical terms and photos from radiology films. For the diehard medical buffs.
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/reprint/169/2/581
(Citation: Nagy, Aurangzeb N., et al. "Horner's Syndrome due to first-order neuron lesions of the oculosympathetic pathway." American Journal of Roentgenology, v. 169, no. 2, p. 581-584, 1997.)

The Genetic and Rare Diseases (GARD) Information Center, on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website, has little info about Horner's, but links to a variety of other resources that might be helpful. I found the solid eMedicine link through this page, so it's worth a few minutes of poking around.
http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/GARD/Condition/6670/Horners_syndrome.aspx
(Note that they use "Horner" on the page, but "Horner's" in the title and the url.)

The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) has a short description of the syndrome, links to other entities that may also be helpful, and the option to purchase a full-text report for the not-too-bad price of $7.95. In spite of the limited info there, I'm including the link because I love this sentence:

The underlying causes can vary enormously, from a snake or insect bite to a neck trauma made by a blunt instrument.

That's right, almost anything might cause Horner's, so good luck figuring it out! ;-)
http://www.rarediseases.org/search/rdbdetail_abstract.html?disname=Horner%27s%20Syndrome

That's what I've got for now. I also found a handful of books through Google Books searches that helped me out, and a couple of informative YouTube videos as well. But, I'll try to share the best of those resources in subsequent posts. I'll also post more about the cause of MY case of Horner Syndrome, internal carotid artery dissection, as I learn more about it. I'm going to see a specialist at a Kansas City hospital in two days. So, more to follow, as I'm able to write and post it.

My long-delayed review of Great House by Nicole Krauss

2010-10-30T11:38:00.003-05:00

(I really love the way the words dominate the cover. I always hear them in my head when I look at the book: "Nicole. KRAUSS. Great. HOUSE." It reinforces the rhyme.)

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company, and to LibraryThing, for the advance reader's copy of the novel Great House by Nicole Krauss. I won the ARC through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

The minute I finished reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss a couple of years ago, I brought the book up to my face and lightly kissed the top edge of the cover. If the book cover were a face, and had a forehead, that’s about the spot where I would have been kissing it, on its forehead. It’s an excellent novel, it kept me guessing, the writing was wonderful, and it probably came into my reading life at the perfect time.

Because I had enjoyed The History of Love so much, I was very happy to find out that I’d won a copy of Krauss’s new novel, Great House, from W. W. Norton, through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer’s program. I received an ARC of the book on Sept. 13, and finished reading it on Sept. 26. Yes, that was about five weeks ago; health-related issues delayed the writing of this review, which I actually started writing TWO weeks ago. I’m embarrassed that it’s taken me so long to write this (and finish writing it), but I think the additional time I’ve thought about the book has led me to view it more positively – so there’s the silver lining to my delay.

I remember at least two different narrators from Krauss’s previous novel. In this one, there are four, each one narrating two chapters. One other review of I saw of Great House noted a "sameness" to the narrators, that it was somewhat difficult to distinguish between them. I don’t think that’s entirely fair. The History of Love had a man in his sixties and a teenage girl, who are bound to speak very differently. Great House has two women and two men, both of the men in their sixties or seventies. The narrator of the “True Kindness” chapters reminds me of Leo from the earlier book, and his is the most distinctive and “interesting” of the narrative voices, but I enjoyed all four in different ways, and became caught up with all four storylines.

Possible Spoilers Ahead!
I try not to include spoilers, except maybe when I’m writing about classics, but some of what I say about Great House could be considered “spoilery,” so proceed with caution. In the blurb on the back of the book (at least of my ARC), after some talk about the different characters (and their basic storylines), it says, “These worlds are anchored by a desk of enormous dimension and many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away.” The back of the book actually talks about three of the four main storylines. As I read the book, I kept track of when, and how long, a character owned the massive desk. Toward the end of the book, I found that one of the storylines apparently had nothing to do with The Desk, and I felt a bit cheated, because here I was expecting to find The Desk in every narrator’s story. Near the very end of one of the other stories, one of the characters from the “non-Desk story” intersects with a character from one of the three “main” (Desk) stories.

When I first finished the novel, I confess I was a little disappointed. The writing was excellent, and as I said, the stories and characters certainly held my interest, even if I never felt close to kissing the book. My feeling about the non-Desk storyline was, Why the hell was it in there at all? The other feeling I had was that I wanted MORE – that if Krauss was going to bring two characters together from different story arcs very late in the novel, it would be nice if we could see where it might be going, not just, “Oh hey, that’s THAT guy. Huh, that’s interesting. I guess I hope he doesn’t die.” In the weeks since I finished reading the book, I’ve changed my mind about this. I’ve decided that, rather than spelling out what happens to the two characters, or giving “hints” so strong or obvious that we’ll know the outcome, Krauss leaves it up to the reader to guess what happens, and I’m okay with that. My take on it goes like this: One character lost The Desk that she’d owned for 25 years, represented her writing successes, and reminded her of the person who’d previously owned it, and the other character had given up so much, and was now close to losing his life. I think he WILL survive, and ultimately they can help one another rebuild their lives.

The novel follows The Desk back and forth through time – and in fact, the way Krauss bends the timeline in the different story arcs can make the reader a bit dizzy, a little bit lost in the Great House. One character’s actions, both long in the past and in the “present” of the novel’s main story, and that character’s obsessive desire to find and claim The Desk, impact nearly everyone else in the novel, to a greater or lesser degree. The need to recapture the past, taken to such an extreme, shuts out any hope for the future, not just for the person who looks only to the past, but often for those closest to them. Krauss allows hopeful (not immediately “happy”) endings for those who remember the past, but strive to live in the present. And throughout, of course, the writing is gorgeous.

S.A.D. = Seasonal Affective Disaster

2010-10-24T22:12:00.001-05:00

Yes, late October this year is about the same as late October every other year, when I'm ready to sob nearly every day, and usually for reasons insignificant or unclear. Crying jag last Monday evening, crying jag again last night, angry and moody moments today. But this year is different because of Horner's syndrome, and because I found out on Thursday that my case of Horner's is probably caused by a dissection in my left internal carotid artery. I've started taking Coumadin, and I'm supposed to not do too much, and try to avoid stress. HA!

No time for more details now, just posting a picture and this blurb because my efforts the past several days to upload a short video that we made (about Horner's syndrome) have failed again and again. My plan is to post the video on YouTube, then post it here on the blog with links to additional information, some of the more helpful pages I've found. Once that is finally done, hopefully we can do a few more videos as we learn more about this condition with my carotid artery, and look at treatment options.

I wish I had time to review books...

2010-10-23T16:22:00.004-05:00

I have books on my bedside table that I've read and had hoped to review, or at least babble about briefly, here on my blog. Now, I'm trying to put a few things in better order (mostly paperwork that needs our attention, or just needs to be sorted out, examined, then filed or recycled), and I noticed that a couple of books on the bottom of the bedside table piles (two piles) have been there quite some time. How long? Well, Anagrams by Lorrie Moore, which I finished reading on Sept. 10. Nightwork by Christine Schutt, which I finished reading on Sept. 3. The partly cloudy patriot by Sarah Vowell, which oh-my-God I finished on Aug. 3, at least two and a half months ago -- and I read it within three days!!!

Okay, I'm going to put a few of these books away, or at least take them off of my bedside table and get them closer to where they really belong, and then decide on my next task. I have more posts planned about my health issues, but other duties are also in line for my attention. So, more to follow pretty soon, I hope!

Short health update, in longhand

2010-10-21T07:42:00.004-05:00

I recently decided to keep an old notebook (actually a cool "blank book" I've had for quite a while) close by me, and hope to jot down activities and thoughts as they happen. I wrote these pages yesterday morning before my radiology tests, and early this morning. More to follow, I hope sooner than later.

FreeVerse: A fragment, or draft

2010-10-13T19:14:00.004-05:00

Just got this into my head and wanted to "jot it down," might try to expand it more later, or might not.

A year ago tonight, my mother passed away.
In the Eastern Time Zone, it's tomorrow,
but here in Kansas, it was, it's still, today.

Imagine the many words we couldn't say
will be fiery red flowers bursting through snow
this winter. It could be beautiful. I'll stay.

(I don't have time to put up the FreeVerse button and I have no idea if anyone's even hosting it anymore -- sorry!!!!!)

Read-a-Thon only hours away, finally signing up

2010-10-08T22:24:00.003-05:00

My life has been a complete zoo for WEEKS now, and I'm so excited to have a Saturday with nothing scheduled for our whole family except a much-needed haircut for me (YAY!), and the 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, a totally awesome excuse for me to REST and READ and not do housework and try to avoid anything else I don't want to deal with. My goal for the Read-a-Thon is to finish at least one of the books I've got "in progress," a total of four of them, all print books, which is very unusual for me. I usually have one audiobook, and one or maybe two print books, so if I can finish one or two of these, it will feel like good progress. Kafka is the priority there, because the book group discussion is next Tuesday evening.

Two of the books in the pile below are NOT books in progress. I finished reading Great House by Nicole Krauss almost two weeks ago, and since I got it from LibraryThing, I need to write a review, and soon -- so I might take a break from reading to write that review. The other unread is A Dog Called Kitty by Bill Wallace, which my older son loved, and my younger son must like it as well because he's been bothering me to read it for several weeks now. It would be a great change of pace if I feel I need to dial things down for a while.

No great expectations, just some quality reading time, some peace and quiet, and finish at least one of the books I've already started. Happy Read-a-Thon, everyone!

Incomplete update: I'm doing ok -- plus a photo!

2010-10-04T22:00:00.001-05:00

In the nearly three weeks since my last post (my visit to the wonderful Avol's Books, during my work trip to Wisconsin for the MTKN and Transportation Library Connectivity Pooled Fund Meetings), I've had a couple of serious migraines, including one paired with a day-long stomach flu, and one linked with some bizarre changes in my left eye. I'm so tired of telling the story, I won't tell it all here, again. I saw my eye doctor today (optometrist), and he's referring me to an ophthalmologist, so I'll have to tell it at least once more.

I'll give a quick timeline, which some of my Facebook friends are familiar with. A week ago yesterday, I went to a clinic, and the physician assistant suggested I go to the ER to get a CT scan of my head, because my pupils were different sizes (among other things), and it could have been a sign of something serious. I had the CT, but the docs wanted to do an MRI and have a neurologist see me, so they admitted me. I waited from about 5pm Sunday for my MRI and MRA until after 8 pm Tuesday night. They did an MRA of my brain, plus MRI of brain, head, and neck. (If you've never had an MRI, be advised: THEY ARE VERY, UNPLEASANTLY LOUD.) They must have ruled out all the major issues, because they read the films STAT, and I found out within half an hour (yes, 940pm) that they wanted to discharge me. (!!)

So, I was sick a few days, and later I spent some days "off the grid" in the hospital when I didn't feel nearly as sick as the week before, and my left eyelid is still droopy and my left pupil is still smaller (see photo, taken tonight). Except for some side effects from a new migraine-prevention med, including some sleepiness during the day, I'm actually feeling all right. My vision is fine and has been the whole time. Hopefully I'll have more definite news pretty soon, as well as some book-related news and at least one review. I'm hoping to participate in the Read-a-thon this coming Saturday, and FINISH one of the several books I've got going now.

Some pictures of Book Nirvana, aka Avol's in Madison

2010-09-15T23:17:00.002-05:00

The only thing I knew I wanted to do while at this work conference in Madison, Wisconsin, was to return to Avol's Books. We had a meeting in Madison in maybe 2007, and I was blown away by this store. I spent about 45 minutes there tonight after dinner, until it closed at 9pm, and I could have browsed at least another half hour. I also have to say, I was very good: I only bought one book, and it's one that had been on my wishlist/watch list for over a year. It's called Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World. Plus, it was only $6.50, and it's in great shape! Yay!!!

Without further ado, a few shots from inside Avol's. The blue paper you see in the fourth picture has a "map" of the store, where the different rooms are and what topics are included in each section. Yes, there are that many rooms. :-D

Hastings book sales I couldn't resist

2010-09-13T14:30:00.001-05:00

I can't believe I haven't posted in two weeks. Time goes by too damn quickly! And, time is at a premium this week, as I'm off to Madison, Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon for two days of work conferences. I'll start packing after I finish this post ... and after the furnace guy is done here at my house. ;-)

I've failed miserably in my attempt to buy fewer books this year. This must be at least exhibit 19:

And here come the excuses:
I got an e-mail from Hastings several weeks ago with an offer of 30% off the price of used books, online only. Now, the bricks-and-mortar Hastings here in Topeka does have clearance racks and periodic sales on used and value (discount/remainder) books, and I've gotten good deals many times. But for the used books in the regular shelves, unless they've been kicking around there a while, unsold, even the used price is often more than I can justify paying unless there's a special sale or coupon that week.

I'd never really looked at the prices and selection online, figuring most of the prices would be comparable to what's in the store. But I'm here to tell you now, some of the prices are incredibly low, like in the $2.00 to $4.00 range. I searched a few titles and authors, and on the last day of the 30% off sale, I went a little nuts. I got five of the six books in the picture through that sale, total of $15.95 including shipping, and the most I paid for a single book, after the 30%discount was applied, was only $2.04. I WIN!

So, my first excuse is the amazing prices plus the additional discount. My second excuse is, three of those five books were already on my "wishlist" and had been for a year or two, specifically: The Zen of Eating: Ancient Answers to Modern Weight Problems by Ronna Kabatznick, Misgivings: My Mother, My Father, Myself, a memoir by the poet C. K. Williams, and Now That My Father Lies Down Beside Me, a poetry collection by Stanley Plumly. The other two were by authors I'd previously read and enjoyed -- and I've mentioned both on this blog -- Eavan Boland and Christine Schutt. One of the coolest things, for me, was that the five books were shipped from different places, so I got a book in the mail every day for a week, skipping only the Sunday and Labor Day holiday when there was no mail. I thought, "I could totally get used to this!!!" Did I mention that all five books only cost $15.95? Oh, I did. ;-) Also, they are all in very good condition, and a few of them don't even have remainder marks on them. Happy happy, book joy!

The sixth book in the pile is The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan, which I bought at my Hastings store the weekend before last. They had a tent set up in the packing lot with many used clearance books, and also some movies, music, and games. The books were "Buy one at the clearance price of $2.99, get a second book for one cent." ONE CENT!!! I ended up with four books: the Egan novel for me, two books for my kids, and one -- I hope you're sitting down! -- for Jeff. The last is called Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot: the Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad by Mike Greenberg, of ESPN's Mike and Mike. Jeff's been reading it on his lunch breaks at work, and it's right up his alley. ("See?" I said. "Reading is great, you just need to have the right books!") Let's recap that day's purchases: four books, but only one of them was actually for me. ;-)

The furnace guy is almost done, so I will close and start some packing soon. Later this week, I'll squeeze in a trip to the fantabulous Avol's Books in Madison, and then Friday is Friends Night at the annual Friends of TSCPL Book Sale. Book heaven, here I come!

A few thoughts on book love and The Passage

2010-08-29T13:40:00.004-05:00

Around the summer of 1986, I read my first Dean Koontz novel, Strangers. I'd never read anything like it, and it's still my favorite of all the Koontz books I've read. It was something like 630 pages, hardcover, and I read it in five or six days. How deeply engrossed was I in Strangers? I still remember coming downstairs one night to find my mom and brother asking me if I'd heard all the racket outside, and I said I hadn't. There'd been several police cars on our street earlier in the evening, because a guy had apparently overdosed on something, and was sitting in a car, naked, just a couple buildings down from us. Even now, I don't mind that I missed all that excitement, because reading Strangers was way more entertaining than anything happening in my real world.

For the past two weeks, I've been reading The Passage by Justin Cronin. I first heard about it on a Books on the Nightstand podcast, and several of the book bloggers I follow read advance copies and were raving about it. My favorite review is this one from Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? I love how she's practically begging people, "Don't be that guy!" -- the one who refuses to read The Passage because of some bias against this or that kind of book. Basically, there are enough reviews of this book online that I don't feel obligated to write a "review." And I also want to say that while book hype often turns me off, I've wanted to read this one ever since I heard about it on Books on the Nightstand.

So, having purchased the hardcover for half off at Hastings back in June, I finally picked it up and started reading it right after my August book group meeting. I wasn't overwhelmed right from the start, but by about page 50, I was really enjoying it. I found myself reading whenever I had 15 minutes (or more!) to focus on it: on many of my breaks at work, while eating supper at home, during the evening if I could, and before going to sleep. (And of course, I was up later than I should have been.) Reading The Passage reminded me of reading Strangers, that same kind of total immersion in another world that true book lovers are always seeking. As Stephen King's blurb on the back cover says, "Read this book and the ordinary world disappears."

Speaking of Stephen King, I was also reminded of his book The Stand as I read this. (I'm really NOT a huge horror/thriller fan; The Stand is the only King I've read so far, and Koontz has written MANY more books than what I've read.) It's a different kind of virus, but the idea of only small pockets of people surviving the crisis, corpses scattered across the country, and the scarcity of resources from "the Time Before" is similar to King's epic. And yes, the character of Auntie is reminiscent of Mother Abigail.

But in spite of these similarities and echoes, The Passage didn't seem derivative to me. It's huge, chaotic, and exciting. In spite of my busy life, I read this 766-page novel, every page, in only two weeks. I actually felt a letdown for a day or two after I finished it. (My reply to Stephen King: Finish reading this book, and fall back into your regular humdrum life.) It's full of characters I came to care about, some even to love. When my book group met to discuss A Division of the Spoils, the last book in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, maybe 11 years ago, I confessed to everyone, "I'm in love with Guy Perron!" As I read the final chapters of The Passage this past week, I thought to myself, "I'm in love with Peter Jaxon!"

The Passage is the first book in a proposed trilogy, and while some things were resolved in the book, additional questions were raised near the end, and there is room for a lot more story to be told. I'm definitely going to read the next book; Cronin has me completely hooked. Visit the website, and consider taking this amazing trip for yourself.

Top Not-Quite-Ten Books I Haven't Read

2010-08-24T19:52:00.001-05:00

I only have about 20 minutes to spare, and debated going for a walk outside, spending time on the treadmill instead, reading an extra 20 minutes of The Passage, and then I happened to pull up my iGoogle page and glance at the newest posts in my Google Reader. Allie over at A Literary Odyssey posted the top ten books she hasn't read. Of course, I instantly thought of a few books that I can't believe I haven't read, at least not yet, and I decided to give this a try. I'm flying by the seat of my pants and have no idea if I'll even reach ten. By the way, this meme is hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish, a blog I'd never seen before but hope to check out again soon. ;-)

1. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. I consider myself a feminist, and I graduated from Smith College, same as Ms. Friedan herself. I didn't even own a copy of the book until a few years ago... shame, shame!

2. Anything by Gloria Steinem, and I have three books by her. Another groundbreaking feminist writer who graduated from Smith, what kind of jerk am I that I haven't read even one of the three books yet?

3. The Odyssey by Homer. Allie's blog title reminded me of this one. I've read parts of this, but not the whole thing, not even half of it.

4. The Complete Tales of Washington Irving. The thing about this one is, I got it when I subscribed to the International Collectors' Library, i.e. classics in bindings that appear to be higher quality than they really are. I think I stopped getting them before 1992. I don't think I've read even one of the tales in this book! And yet I never think of weeding it from my collection. I just know that someday I'll read it and love it!

5. Time in Its Flight by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. I've mentioned a few times before how much I love love love nearly all of the books I've read by SFS. Of the ones I have but haven't yet read, I think this is the oldest.

6. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky. I'm pretty sure I bought this around 1997, after seeing a video about Chomsky that was also called Manufacturing Consent, when I was in grad school. This is one I've thought many times, I should either try to read it (at least SOME of it!) or give in and weed it, and still it sits on my shelf, I can't let it go.

7. Walden by Thoreau. Long on my shelf, and I listened to a couple hours of the audio, but didn't finish.

8. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. Some of the books everyone read in high school, I never got to because I dropped out. This one slipped through the cracks. I did read East of Eden for a book group meeting, though, and that one's a LOT longer. ;-)

9. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. This was never on my radar until I saw the Winona Ryder movie in early 1995. Love that Christian Bale! * sigh *

There are far too many more of them, I'm sure! And now I've typed too long, need to call my grandmother and check in, before Jeff and the boys get home. But this was so much fun! And also a trifle guilt-inducing ... but I'll think about that tomorrow ... and yes, I have read Gone with the Wind. ;-)

Back to school / Time passing

2010-08-15T17:08:00.003-05:00

The boys go back to school tomorrow. I am already thinking ahead to the next day I'll be able to take the day off from work, now that Jeff has a job again and the boys will be at school, and I'll be able to have a real and true day TO MYSELF. The past couple of weeks at work, I've felt like I've been treading water -- or like I'm a woman on the verge of burnout. It feels wrong to think of taking a day off from work when I have a ton of things to do there, while at the same time the thought of setting aside a day to recharge my batteries sounds tempting and quite heavenly.

That's basically where I'm at: feeling scattered, split in 20 different directions, mostly at work but also sometimes at home. I feel like all the extra stuff I've had to do this year related to work -- going to my first TRB Meeting last January and participating in a poster session, the trip to New Orleans in June for SLA and NTKN (though I fell in love with the city), all my conference calls for the various groups I'm involved with, and the duties that go along with them -- all of this piled on top of my daily work has made it so hard to keep up, to make any sort of progress, and it's worn me down to the point where I wish I could withdraw from all the tasks and activities that aren't directly related to my regular work in my own library. It makes me want to withdraw, period, as far into my books and reading as I can go without losing touch with the "real world." HA! A mental health day wouldn't be enough, I think maybe a mental health WEEK would be much more beneficial!

But beyond the fact that my next day off (whenever I have it) will be a day ALONE, two other things give me a bit of hope: first, that I resigned my spot from one of the groups I was involved with, so that eliminates a two-hour conference call each month, plus occasional duties related to that task force; and second, the conference I'll attend in Madison next month will be shorter than my January and June trips, and is the last work trip I have in the foreseeable future. And also, I've stopped writing conference call minutes, and that has been a relief.

Finally, although yesterday gave me some difficult moods, particularly during our family outing to the bowling alley, I'm pleased that I got my regular housecleaning all done today, and have also been reading a fantastic book in which I can easily lose myself: The Passage by Justin Cronin. I started it on Wednesday or Thursday, and hope to reach page 200 (at least) before I go to bed tonight. It's a true chunkster, over 700 pages, and it is thrilling to me. I love going into a novel and away from my own life for a while.

Yep, I’m still here…and a short reading update

2010-08-06T18:28:00.003-05:00

(I wrote this during my break at work yesterday, then forgot to e-mail it home or save it to my flash drive. So even though it's now Friday evening, just pretend that I posted it on Thursday evening.)

In about the past week and a half, I’ve read two books that I completely enjoyed, that were wildly different from one another. First, I read one of my newest acquisitions (gasp!), The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I finished that on Sunday morning, but didn’t quite feel up to writing a review, wanting instead to start reading something else as quickly as possible. I wanted it to be something GOOD, but also different from Hedgehog so I could keep that “mood” in my head a bit longer. I picked up a book that’s been on my shelves for at least five years, The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. I started it on Sunday afternoon, and finished it on Tuesday evening – yes, in not much more than 48 hours, I read the whole thing! Truthfully, it’s not a long book, and it’s a fast read, but the fact that I was able to read it so quickly, that just makes me happy. :-)

So here’s the thing: I’d like to blog about both of them, at least a short review with a few quotes, but at the moment, TIME is an issue for me. Our book group meets next week, and we’d planned to read a few short stories by Eudora Welty. I would have started reading those last night, however, the woman leading the discussion is now sick and in the hospital. A quick “Plan B” has formed: to read the novel written by a member of our group, and discuss that at our next meeting. The pros are that several members have the book and/or have already read it. The con for me is, while I did just buy it, I haven’t read it yet, and it’s over 400 pages long. The meeting is five days away. So, I think I can get a decent amount of it read, enough to participate intelligently at next Tuesday’s meeting, but beyond this short update, I probably won’t be writing any other blog posts for about another week. It's hard to not write when I actually have posts in mind that I want to write. But hopefully, I'll be back at it soon.

One positive thought on the topic of TIME: once the boys go back to school, I’ll be able to take the occasional day off and actually have the house to myself, now that Jeff is working again. This simple thought brings me so much quiet contentment and anticipation, I can’t even tell you! My books and my blog should be getting a bit more attention, if I can catch up enough at work to schedule a few days off in the next couple months.

Short birthday post: list of things to do

2010-07-30T11:46:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping that if I type out this list real quick, it will help me keep in mind what I've done today and what I still need to do. It's my birthday, and I took the day off work, which is great, but instead of just a relaxing day doing only what I want to do, I had several items on my to-do list ... plus the boys are home with me, and they're being really good (for them!), but they still need breakfast, lunch, internet help, etc., and they periodically want to climb on me and keep me from doing the next thing on my to-do list.

OK, as far as the list...

Laundry is DONE, or at least as much as I needed to do is done, the rest can wait till later or tomorrow.
I checked with Grandma about her home insurance and what she changed to get her rate back down, and then called the insurance agent. STILL TO DO: Go to his office between 130pm and 2pm and sign the updated policy.
Sorted through some old paperwork, put a bunch in recycling box, and have a small stack to shred. STILL TO DO: More sorting and/or shredding, though this is not critical.
STILL TO DO: Some housecleaning, as we have a birthday party/wiffle ball "tournament" tomorrow afternoon and evening, and will have lots of boys over here. Whatever cleaning I can do today, won't need to be done tomorrow morning (when I'm also getting a haircut).
STILL TO DO: Dub the family video from the camcorder over to DVD, and make sure camera is charged for tonight/tomorrow. AND, set DVD recorder for Friday Night Lights -- it's gonna be so great!!!

Maybe if I do this:
Clean first bathroom. Have lunch. Feed lunch to boys. Get myself ready to go out. Call Grandma about boys coming over. Bring boys with me to insurance agent's office (between 130pm and 2pm -- about two hours from now, give or take a few minutes), and sign paperwork. Then bring boys to Grandma's house, and come back home alone to finish as many more tasks from my list as I can.

OK ... on my mark, get set, GET GOING!

Another reason to love Friday Night Lights

2010-07-23T05:00:00.002-05:00

Because season four of Friday Night Lights was broadcast on DirecTV before they began showing it on NBC, I'd already seen occasional comments in Entertainment Weekly last winter praising it: yes, some beloved characters are gone or only appear in a few episodes, but you'll soon love these new characters, too. I clearly remember a blurb in the TV Watch section about some powerful work by Zach Gilford, whose character, Matt Saracen, lost his father in the war in Iraq. When I finally saw the episode a few weeks ago, called simply "The Son," I saw for myself why people were buzzing that Gilford should get an Emmy nomination.

A couple weeks ago, the 2010 Primetime Emmy nominations were announced, and unfortunately, Zach Gilford was not nominated for Guest Actor for his performance in "The Son." However, as I found in this post over at Give Me My Remote, that episode did earn a nomination in the category "Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series." It was written by my old college and Crucible acquaintance, Rolin Jones. According to IMDB, he was nominated last year for both an Emmy award and a Writers Guild of America award for his work on the show Weeds, as both producer and writer, but it appears this is his first solo Emmy nomination. (He's been credited as a supervising producer on Friday Night Lights all season. Imagine my surprise when I saw THAT in the opening credits of the season premiere -- but I managed not to fall off the treadmill.) I have no idea what his chances are, or even which other shows are nominated in that category, but how cool would it be if he wins?!?!?

No, I've never met Kyle Chandler or Connie Britton, but I'm over the moon about their acting nominations as well, because they make me believe that I know them, when they're playing Coach Eric and Tami Taylor. They anchor this show, week in and week out, and they've made the Taylors so very real, with human faults, but a greater amount of human beauty and goodness.

Click here for a recap of "The Son" on ew.com from last winter, and here for a great piece on GMMR after the episode's NBC airing last month.

Watch NBC's 2-minute replay of "The Son":

And after the scene of Matt and the guys talking on the football field, Matt goes to the Taylors' house for dinner (very late), and his emotions take over:

And if the amazing acting and writing aren't enough to convince you to watch, then ladies, there's always Taylor Kitsch as Tim Riggins. ;-) There's nothing better than Friday Night.

FreeVerse: The Walk -- a poem for Rolin

2010-07-21T01:00:00.019-05:00

(FreeVerse is hosted by Cara at Ooh...Books! Unfortunately she's been on a blogging hiatus, but I wanted to put this one up anyway.)

Back in 2006, there were three plays nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. One of them was The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by a man named Rolin Jones. I was pretty freaked out by this, because I knew Rolin Jones. Not well, of course -- we were really just acquaintances. I don't know if he'd remember me, even...but maybe, maybe he would.

I was attending Smith College, and needed to make up a credit. I think it was the fall semester of 1993. (I transferred to Smith, in Northampton, Mass., from Community College of Rhode Island. I was there for five semesters, fall 1992 through fall 1994, and officially graduated in May 1995.) I'd helped out backstage on a high school play once and loved it, so I signed up to work on a play at Smith to get my one credit. It was The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and it was amazing.

Rolin wasn't the lead; I think he played Judge Hathorne, maybe. He wore glasses, and he just looked so smart, and of course drama folk are really creative -- and he wasn't turn-your-head-to-look-again gorgeous or anything, but he was certainly nice-looking. He caught my attention early on, maybe it was even the first day I was in the theater, when I overheard him talking to someone about irony in Edith Wharton. Yup, I had my eye on him.

At the end of the run, after the cast party, I ended up hanging around with a guy named Tom (I think), upstairs in the house he rented in downtown NoHo. Rolin was downstairs with the girl who played Tituba in the play. If there were any possible way I could have switched places with her, no question, I would have done it. But then in the spring, the poet John Ashbery was doing a reading at Smith, and I was thrilled to see Rolin in the audience. I went up to him, he seemed happy to see me, I grasped his hand, and we made plans to meet the next day at the Japanese Tea Hut, near Paradise Pond.

This is what happened after we met.

       The Walk
                              (for Rolin)

  It's April. Winter
  grips the woods.

  The forest path cries
  under ice.

  We stroll near
  a stream, feet slipping

  in old snow. I hear
  the chilly day

  in our breath,
  and an echo of highway

  by another water body
  one hundred miles away.

  I forget the year I'm in,
  think of Providence, a park

  on a dock, filthy water
  slapping stones

  along the land's edge,
  a power plant across the lake.

  His voice stops me; we pause
  where the walk bends.

  He sings a birdcall, listens
  to cooing replies. A motor

  squawks far off, and he tells
  me the world is ending.

  I kick a broken branch
  off the footpath, but he

  smiles, moves it back,
  teases, then leaves me.

  The water sways my head,
  clouds darken the afternoon,

  my hands pray for
  something warmer than rivers.

  A bird repeats my scream.
  Day waits. I'm under.

I don't know if I'd remember Rolin Jones as well if I hadn't written the poem, but I did, and so I do. I'm impressed by what he's accomplished so far, and excited to see what else he'll do. I'm proud to say "I knew him when..." He didn't win the Pulitzer; they decided not to award one that year, which just seems wrong to me. But now, Rolin's just been nominated for an EMMY award. Hopefully that story will be my next post. ;-)

Short notes on reading, mid-July

2010-07-18T21:30:00.001-05:00

I finally just finished my last LibraryThing Early Reviewer book, a short biography of E. M. Forster. It was quite good, and with a block of free time and in the right frame of mind, I could easily have finished it in only one or two days. Instead, it took eleven days. I'm sure it isn't the fault of the book, but all a reflection on me.

I feel not quite ready to write my review, even though I expect it'll be a short one. I procrastinated about starting the book, took more time to read it than I should have -- I think I must wait a day or two before writing the review, keep the pattern consistent! But also, I'm thinking ahead to what's next. I'd like to start reading The Passage, but starting right in tonight isn't a good idea; I need to get ready for bed soon, back to work tomorrow. Perhaps I'll have to grab a book of poetry, and just read a few pages before turning in.

There's one other book I purchased recently that I might have to start on fairly soon. I bought a few books at the library's booktique this past week, and when I entered them into my LibraryThing catalog, that activity was cross-posted to Facebook. A couple of my college friends both commented on that post, specifically about The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, which they'd both read. A couple of days later, I picked up the book and read the synopsis and review blurbs while I ate breakfast. Honestly, I'd bought it based upon the fact that it had been widely praised, mentioned on a Books on the Nightstand podcast, I had the sense it was "literary fiction" of the type I'd probably enjoy ... and because it was in great condition and had a bargain price. I really didn't know what the story was about (she said sheepishly). Once I looked at the book flap and back cover, I wanted to start reading it ASAP. But I had the Forster bio on the front burner, and also wondered whether Hedgehog would be too "literary," too complex for the current state of my scattered mind. Oh, but it does sound wonderful!

One more book in my TBR mountain that was recently recommended to me by a friend, is a short novel called The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. In addition to its length, one other note in its favor is that it would count for my Read Your Own Books (RYOB) Challenge, whereas the other two technically wouldn't, as they're recent purchases. I also need to decide on my next audiobook; I've been listening to podcasts in recent days rather than starting another audio. But soon, soon, I will.

Today was not great, of course, but I'd recovered enough from last evening to finish the Forster book, and had only a few teary moments at times during the day -- no explosions of sobbing, no crazy wishes to escape. I did escape, in a way, to the library, for about an hour, only because a book Kyle had requested was ready for pick-up. I browsed some of the poetry, and then spent more time in the booktique, but resisted the urge to check out or purchase anything, except the book for Kyle.

It was so good to spend some time thinking of Forster today, and his beautiful fictions. Thank God for those writers who speak to me across time, some from beyond death, who make me feel, think, and question, who bring me insight, excitement, and knowledge. Thank God for those writers and their books, that comfort me, almost always comfort me.

What the darkness is like

2010-07-17T23:00:00.002-05:00

After an evening of dark thoughts and strong sobbing, some questions move through the front of my mind.

I definitely have too many books. If I got rid of bunches of books, would I feel liberated in some way? Could it help me to then lose bunches of weight, maybe? -- that sense of liberation, however limited it might be?

Am I trapped within the fences of my everyday life, as I so often feel I am? Or am I trapping myself, allowing the endless tangled skeins in my brain to overwhelm whatever clarity and determination might still exist in there?

Can I write my way out of the confusion, if not out of the depression? Even if the sentences I can pull out aren't any good, the act of writing is good in itself, and therapeutic, always. The writing can suck, yet still be "valuable," in that it helps me just to try to express what the darkness is like.

Why do I still have these moods when, for the most part, my anti-depressants seem to keep the worst feelings at bay? I don't want to think about changing medicines. Is there something else I can do to ease some of the pain, to stop myself from breaking, or being broken?

I realize living with a depressed person is not a walk in the park ... or maybe it's that walk through the park after your car died and there's a storm pouring down on you, and a rain-wrapped tornado not too far away. How can a relationship withstand that kind of stress, on-again and off-again, month after month, years upon years?

I'm tired now, and finally might try to go to sleep. I hope to wake feeling better (or even less bad would do), well enough to get some decent reading done tomorrow. To hell with everything else, if I can just steady my mind for a while and read.

Happy Anniversary to Scout, Atticus, Harper ... and Chris & Harry

2010-07-11T20:50:00.003-05:00

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is one of very few books that I would recommend to anyone, if they haven't read it yet. It's the only book that I recommend to people who don't read very often. During my husband's months of unemployment, I finally got so upset about his not having read it, that he listened to the audiobook. (Sissy Spacek's narration is, in my opinion, as close to perfect as it possibly could be. I love when she reads, as Scout, "'Ain't nobody gonna do Jem that way!'" I've listened to it twice.) There were events held all around the U.S. today, but there are a handful more coming up in the days and weeks ahead. To see the schedule, and find out more about Harper Lee and her truly beautiful book, visit the 50 anniversary website, by HarperCollins Publishers.

In other years, for me, July 11 has marked another anniversary: my parents' wedding. They were married in 1970, forty years ago today. I had a thought this weekend that might sound bizarre, but I found it comforting: that this year, Ma and Da are together for their anniversary for the first time since 2004. He died in May 2005, and she in October 2009. I imagine they are together in heaven today, perhaps dancing to an Elvis Presley song -- a ballad, as my mom was never one to "cut up a rug" to fast songs. (My dad had no shame and would dance to fast songs, to the horror and embarrassment of all the rest of us.) So Happy Anniversary thoughts for Christine and Harry, two damaged people who found one another, brought me into the world, and raised me to be strong enough to leave them.

New books, New Orleans edition

2010-06-28T21:48:00.002-05:00

It's too late for a blog post, but if I at least get it started now (Saturday), maybe I can finish and post it tomorrow. I got carried away by bookstores in New Orleans, and bought seven books -- though in my defense, all were used books, and not necessarily cheap but reasonably priced. I found a number of other titles that tempted me, including a first edition of The Injured Party by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, which was ten dollars at Crescent City Books, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy it since I already have it in hardcover and in a worn and well-loved mass market paperback edition. Seeing SFS books is always bittersweet: on one hand, I'm glad she's out there for people to find, and on the other hand, I feel like I should be buying them because so few people know of her and read her books -- like I need to "rescue" the book, and save it from languishing for however many additional months/years on the shelf, unknown and unloved.

But anyway, back to the bookstores I haunted and the books I did buy. I was so glad one of my librarian friends from DC, Amanda, had a couple of free hours between commitments and wanted to go with me to check out one or two of the stores. This was on Monday of SLA week, about June 14th. We went to Crescent City Books first, but the owner said he'd be open until 8 or 9pm, while Beckham's Bookshop, only a block or two away, was closing at 5pm. So we went to Beckham's for 20 to 30 minutes, until it closed, and if I go back to New Orleans someday, I'll set aside a much longer chunk of time to browse there. They had wi-fi -- I just had to ask for the password -- so I pulled up my LibraryThing wishlist to see what I could find. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of those titles in the time I had, but confirmed that I didn't already have a copy of The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, so I bought that.

5pm, back to Crescent City Books, though Amanda and I were both getting hungry and thinking of dinner, and she had tentative dinner plans with a few of our other colleagues. While we were in Crescent City, a thunderstorm moved in -- the lightning and thunder even scarier on the second floor, where I was browsing, and Amanda was soon reading and resting on the sofa pictured at the bottom of this page. (I eventually sat down too; the storm kept us there longer than we'd planned.) The owner of Crescent City Books kept his store open later than usual, having heard librarians were in town, and not only was he appreciative when I brought him two books that were mis-shelved, he offered us glasses of wine, since we were there for the conference. He was awesome, his store is wonderful, and I highly recommend stopping by there. (Also, please check if the Susan Fromberg Schaeffer novel is still there, and if it is, please consider buying it!) Yes, I bought three books there, all poetry: Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright (which I'd read before, very very good), All the Poems of Muriel Spark, and Station Island by Seamus Heaney.

I already mentioned my Wednesday evening trip to Dauphine Street Books in my previous post. Since I didn't take any pictures of the bookstores myself, I searched for photos of the inside of this one. I found a couple that show just how packed with books this place is. See this one from Flickr member vegetablesandwiches, and a few Picasaweb pix from user trustcate: here, and here, and then here. That last photo in particular will explain why I was thinking about my weight problems while I browsed this store. Seriously, the aisles were too narrow for two people to stand back to back and browse, and I'm really glad the store's owner has a slender build. In addition to the Lydia Davis collection Almost No Memory, I bought Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, and a novel called Hell by Kathryn Davis.

Since I had a good number of new books, I decided to take a book stack photo to include here. The three other books in the photo are ones I bought at Hastings a few days before I went to New Orleans. As usual, I got carried away, but also predictably, I didn't pay full price. The mammoth-size book on the bottom is The Passage by Justin Cronin, which I bought the day it came out for two reasons: once in a great while, I desperately want to own and read a book that's new and "hot," and my curiosity got the better of me on this one and I caved; however, I caved to the tune of $13.50, half off the list price of $27.00, and that amazing new release price for a book this size is the second reason I bought it. I really do hope to read it by the end of the summer. The other two were gently used books about books and reading, found in the bargain shelves for $2.99 each: How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen, and Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore by Suzanne Strempek Shea.

It is late June, and the annual Friends of TSCPL book sale is in September, less than three months away. No more book buying bonanzas until September!

It is also late Monday evening, now, and I need to look this over and get it posted, make more preparations for our trip to Worlds of Fun tomorrow, and hope we can all get a decent amount of sleep before our busy day. Night, readers. ;-)

"Every Southern belle is a Mississippi queen..."

2010-06-23T21:41:00.003-05:00

When I was about 19 – nearly so, or just-turned 19 – I went with my roommate Janis to New York City for the first time. We drove to Connecticut, and then took a train into the city. I still remember stepping out of Grand Central Station and onto the sidewalk, and into that feeling of being in a city that was completely alive. It was one of those amazing, “Look out, world, I’m ready for anything!” kinds of feelings.

I spent most of last week in New Orleans, for the Special Libraries Association annual conference (Sunday through Wednesday), and the second annual National Transportation Knowledge Network (NTKN) meeting (Thursday). I had a hard time sleeping most every night, yet I rarely felt tired during the day. It seemed that I’d fallen under the city’s spell without realizing it. In New York, half my lifetime ago, I was charged up and ready to experience “the city that never sleeps.” In New Orleans, I wasn’t thinking of anything extraordinary, just hoping for safe travel, an informative conference, and some time to catch up with librarian friends and colleagues. (Well, I also hoped to visit at least one bookstore, since I hadn’t gotten to any on my first Louisiana trip, to Baton Rouge in October 2008.)

It was during my relaxing, on-my-own Wednesday evening that I realized I’d been “infected.” Back in my hotel room after the SLA Closing General Session, trying to decide where to have dinner and what else to do, I called Dauphine Street Books to find out how late they were open. I walked over there and was able to browse for about half an hour –- after simply staring around me for the first couple minutes, overwhelmed with the volume of books in the place. I ended up buying three books, including one that had been on my wish list for about two years, Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis. I’ll save the details of my New Orleans book buying spree for another post, but I’ll say here that I left Dauphine Street Books a very happy camper.

I didn’t realize until early Wednesday afternoon that there was an IHOP only a block from my hotel. Basically every time I left the hotel, I went south toward the Marriott, to get the shuttle to the Convention Center. Riding in the taxi on Wednesday, after a relaxing morning in my hotel room, I actually looked at things around me, instead of just checking my schedule or stressing about running late. I noticed the IHOP before the taxi made the U-turn to go south. I thought of how something soft like pancakes would be wonderful and satisfying, after several days of eating foods that were hard on my still-sore mouth, and tiring my jaw. (It had been four weeks since I’d gotten my wisdom teeth pulled, and yes, I could tell that things still weren’t quite right.) IHOP was right near the corner of Dauphine and Canal, and I happily got a table for one. I glanced at my three new books, but spent most of my time skimming my copy of NCHRP Report 643, Implementing Transportation Knowledge Networks, and marking the passages I liked.

I think I heard some of the music from outside while I was inside eating, but now, a week later, I’m not sure if I’m recalling it correctly. Once outside, I couldn’t help hearing it – very loud, and right there on the corner of Canal and Bourbon Street, between IHOP and my hotel. I stopped to watch and listen with a crowd of dozens of other people, including a good number dancing. There were no voices, just an incessant, irresistible beat, and horns and saxophones breathing pure elation. I stood there about five minutes, soaking it in. And then the players started to sing – or to chant – something like, “If you don’t worry ‘bout me / Then I won’t worry ‘bout you,” and then, “If you don’t f*** with me / Then I won’t f*** with you.” Yup, it still sounded great to me!

Soon, I crossed Bourbon Street and headed toward my hotel. I felt a dopey smile on my face, following an evening of new books, a satisfying (and reasonably priced) supper, and a small sea of incredible music.

I’ve since learned, searching YouTube, that the musicians I heard are called the To Be Continued (or TBC) Brass Band. Tonight, I found part of that same performance, from the evening of June 16, posted on YouTube. It’s fairly short, less than three minutes, and includes the vocals – and that’s great, I like them! – but I wish it were longer, with a couple more minutes of music before the singing. I’m a wordy person, I love lyrics, but it was the beat and rhythm that kept me standing there, hypnotized, before any word was sung.

I stopped in a souvenir and music store in the airport, before getting my plane on Thursday. I looked through the CDs, and wanted to ask the cashier who was singing overhead, but she was talking on the phone the whole time I was in there. I remembered how much my dad loved jazz, and wished I could tell him about the music of New Orleans. When I was young, I enjoyed some of my parents’ music, but I hadn’t warmed to jazz, I didn’t hear it very often. “Da, the airport is named after Louis Armstrong, and music is the spirit of the city. You would have loved this place.”

(To learn more about why the TBC Brass Band was swearing in this performance, read this piece.)

What I would write if I had time, and quiet:

2010-05-31T20:59:00.001-05:00

An essay on Lost, with a focus on the finale.

Yeah, that's the big one, if ever I might get to it.

But also:
a post for FreeVerse this coming Wednesday;
a reading update, in which I'm stretched in at least four directions;
a review of On Beauty by Zadie Smith, with nods to E. M. Forster and Howards End;
a poem to plumb my soul;
that book about my parents that Jeff wants me to write.

I've actually spent a good amount of time in the basement writing, this last couple hours -- well, mostly writing, with a little web exploration before and after -- while Jeff took charge of the boys. It wasn't a writing project for pleasure, unfortunately, but I made some progress, and appreciate Jeff giving me the chance to be productive. Plan for the not-too-distant future: minimize requirement to write for others, maximize time and opportunity to write for myself.

Review: The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W.G. Sebald

2010-05-27T21:30:00.002-05:00

I received a copy of The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald, edited by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to the publisher, Seven Stories Press, and to LibraryThing, for the chance to obtain and review this book.

When I found out I'd won this book through the ER program, I felt guilty for requesting it, because I've never read anything by W. G. Sebald. However, now that I've read the book, I'm so glad I requested and won it. Sebald's work sounds difficult, experimental, hard to define, but very fascinating.

The collection contains several interviews with the writer, as the subtitle states, but also several essays and reviews, and a solid introduction by the editor, Lynne Sharon Schwartz. The interviews introduce a very intelligent, humane, and likeable writer. He was serious about his work and the topics he explored, but the interviews show that Sebald had a sense of humor as well. I also found the essays to be interesting and thought-provoking: not mere book reviews, nor academic criticism heavy with literary theory, but engaging essays for serious readers.

One of the essays, by Michael Hofmann, is not complimentary, and that's a good piece for Schwartz to include. Because Sebald's themes were complex, his methods unusual and experimental, his books are not for everyone. Moreover, any artist who explores the rough edges of the canvas, who tries to stretch the boundaries of what is expected and accepted, is likely to stumble at times. As Schwartz says in the introduction, the "vulnerabilities" in Sebald's work that Hofmann discusses "are real and should be taken into account in any assessment of his work."

Having been introduced to Sebald before being introduced to his writing, in a sense, I hope to read one or two of his books for myself before too long, with The Emergence of Memory near at hand to redirect me if I start to get lost. Fans of Sebald's books will certainly want to read this collection and likely enjoy it. In my case, I think I'll understand and appreciate Sebald's works a good deal more because I read this book first.

Not really a review of King Dork by Frank Portman

2010-05-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

To say this post is overdue would be quite an understatement. I started reading King Dork, a novel by Frank Portman, during the 24-Hour Read-a-Thon on April 10, and finished it the following week. It’s one of the funniest, and most fun, books I’ve read in my life. In the same way that I read passages aloud to Jeff as I progressed through the story, I knew I’d have to post a blog about the book, because it’s just too hysterical, you have to share some parts of the hilarity with other people. So this probably shouldn’t be seen as a review of the book, but more an appreciation. Page numbers are from my own copy of the book, the trade paperback by Delacorte Press, 2006.

The story is narrated by the main character, Tom Henderson, a tenth-grader at Hillmont High School. Tom’s father died in a car crash about six years before the novel opens, and his mom has recently remarried. Tom’s step-father is also named Tom, and he likes to call himself Big Tom and his step-son Little Dude. However, throughout the book, the narrator refers to his step-dad as Little Big Tom, or LBT, because he’s quite short. King Dork also has a younger sister named Amanda.

Tom has one friend, Sam Hellerman. Here’s Tom’s description of their relationship:

I know Sam Hellerman because he was the guy right before me in alphabetical order from the fourth through eighth grades. You spend that much time standing next to somebody, you start to get used to each other.
He’s the closest thing I have to a friend, and he’s an all-right guy. I don’t know if he realizes that I don’t bring much to the table, friendship-wise. I let him do most of the talking. I usually don’t have a comment. (p. 8)

He always has lots to say. He can manage for both of us. We spend a lot of time over each other’s houses watching TV and playing games. There’s a running argument about whose house is harder to take. … [H]e usually wins and comes to my house because I’ve got a TV in my room and he doesn’t. TV can really take the edge off. Plus, he has a taste for prescription tranquilizers, and my mom is his main unwitting supplier. (p. 9)

Tom and Sam are also “in a band” together, though they mainly just pick a band name, design a logo, choose pseudonyms for themselves, decide upon a couple of album titles, and then after a week or two, they pick a NEW band name and the whole process begins again. Tom also writes song lyrics. During the whole book, Tom never refers to his friend as “Sam,” but always as “Sam Hellerman,” every single time. Some might find that annoying, but I have to say, I loved it.

Some information about Tom’s mother, in addition to the fact that she takes prescription tranquilizers:

Sometimes I accuse my mom of being a hippie, though that’s an exaggeration. She just likes to think of herself as more sensitive and virtuous and free-spirited than thou. If that dream leads her down some puzzling or slightly embarrassing avenues in a variety of neighborhoods, it’s not the world’s biggest tragedy. “I’m a very spiritual person,” she likes to say, for instance. Like when she’s explaining how she hates religion and all those who practice it. Well, okay, if it makes you feel better, Carol. She’s really about as spiritual as my gym shorts, but I love her anyway. (p. 23)

While the social aspects of life at Hillmont High School are difficult for a lot of kids, and even dangerous at times for those on the lowest rungs of the social ladder (like Tom and Sam), the academics are “shockingly easy,” according to Tom:

Assignments typically involve copying a page or two from some book or other. Sometimes you have a “research paper,” which means that the book you copy out of is the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. You’re graded on punctuality, being able to sit still, and sucking up. (p. 11)

Tom has an interesting view of The Catcher in the Rye, a book that becomes a central part of the plot:

Oh, wait: I should mention that The Catcher in the Rye is this book from the fifties. It is every teacher’s favorite book. The main guy is a kind of misfit kid superhero named Holden Caulfield. For teachers, he is the ultimate guy, a real dreamboat. They love him to pieces. They all want to have sex with him, and with the book’s author, too, and they’d probably even try to do it with the book itself if they could figure out a way to go about it. It changed their lives when they were young. As kids, they carried it with them everywhere they went. They solemnly resolved that, when they grew up, they would dedicate their lives to spreading The Word.
It’s kind of like a cult. (p. 12)

I’ve tried to share passages from the book that give you a sense of Tom’s voice and everyday life (primarily school, family, his “band,” and Sam Hellerman). I haven’t even touched on the unresolved questions about his father’s death, his bizarre encounter with a girl named Fiona, how finding his father’s copy of Catcher and several other of his dad’s books leads to some amateur sleuthing, or the wacky supporting characters who add to the amusement. There's also a glossary at the end, and a list of all the band names and album titles Tom and Sam go through in the novel. It's just genius.

King Dork is usually found in the young adult section of the bookstore, but be aware that there are sexual situations and a lot of swearing, so younger teens and pre-teens probably shouldn’t read it, and the same goes for adults who are likely to be offended by the language or some of the subject matter. But if you don’t mind those things, and you ever felt like a misfit or an outsider in your younger days, find a copy of King Dork and have the last laugh.

List of things to do... Write a book?!?!?

2010-05-20T20:27:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday, I made a list of things I needed to do on Sunday. It looked like this:
--> call Grandma A.
--> update checkbook (did I get paid this week?) & pay bills
--> update Google calendar with game & picture changes
--> housecleaning
--> switch purse back to black one

On Sunday, I saw that Jeff had added two more items to the list. The first was:
--> Kohl's
and that was fine, because we had a 30% discount, and I'd recently mentioned wanting to go to Kohl's to look for some new clothes.

The other thing he'd added to my "to do" list was:
--> write book about my parents

By the end of the day, everything was checked off or crossed out, except
--> write book about my parents

But seriously, that's not a one-day task. It's not even a one-week or one-month task for most people who actually manage to write a whole book (which is really not too many people, comparatively speaking). A little later, on another sheet of paper, Jeff started writing some notes about how I might start the book, the kinds of stuff I could put into an introduction. Then he added a short outline below that:
Chapter 2 -- on your mom's life until she met your dad.
Chapter 3 -- on your dad's life until he met your mom.

and so on, and so on. He has continued to talk about me writing this book, every day, all week.

I haven't yet decided if I'll go back to work tomorrow -- I haven't had a lot of pain, thanks to the Vicodin, but I've also been really tired at times, and felt kinda fuzzy and unfocused at times, also thanks to the Vicodin (at least in part). So, I might have more pain tomorrow if I don't take any more Vicodin, or I might still have that sleepy, out-of-it feeling from the two doses I took today. And if I stay home, I will get extra rest, it's true, but I'm sure I'll also have Jeff "encouraging" me further to get started writing this book. Sure, I always need another project! -- NOT!!

Seriously, I love to write, and I might take Jeff's notes and advice, and at least start writing some parts of my story, and of my parents' stories. But I'd have to take baby steps, to not become overwhelmed. I wouldn't be "writing a book," I'd just be "doing some writing" and/or "working on something." Would my life give me enough time to do it, though? There's work, and a couple of work-related trips coming up in the next few months, and the boys and their baseball and other activities, and Jeff, and Jeff possibly getting back to work in a handful of weeks (if all goes well). And of course, there's my reading, which is important to me, which soothes my rough emotions, but also marks new and exciting paths through my mind. (And there's this blog, which I've recently "redecorated," and where I'd been hoping to spend more time.) Very often, my reading helps my writing. How can I have time for both, and for all my other responsibilities? I don't know. But I suppose I'll never know, if I never begin.

Post-pulled wisdom teeth post

2010-05-19T21:14:00.001-05:00

About ten hours ago, I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled out. I don't think I'd ever had any teeth extracted before -- certainly none of my adult teeth, but I don't remember having any baby teeth pulled, either. The first four or five hours were hard, my mouth and jaw and tongue too numb to talk clearly, and some soreness, and weird discomfort from the gauze in my mouth, I couldn't close it. And the bleeding, I was a little concerned about that.

A couple hours ago, before we sat down to watch the Wednesday ABC comedies (rerun of The Middle, then season finales of The Middle and Modern Family), Jeff looked at me and said he was impressed. I asked why. He said he figured I'd be moaning half the day and zonked out the rest of the time. I did take a nap this afternoon (no surprise, between the pain medicine and the fact that I didn't sleep great last night), but overall, I think I've done well. I've only had liquids and applesauce, and didn't get seriously hungry till after 730pm. I hope I can lose a pound or two, after a couple days of forced dieting! But anyway, so far, so good, and we'll see how I feel tomorrow morning, when I wake up and the pain medicine has worn off -- yikes!

Hope to spend some quality time with my laptop tomorrow, so maybe more soon, if I feel up to it.

On the threshold of change ... at least for my blog

2010-05-12T21:56:00.003-05:00

I’ve been thinking about changing things up with my blog. I still like the template I chose when I started this blog, about two years ago, and I think it’s suited me well, but I feel like I’m ready for a new look. My first inkling of this need for change came a few months ago, when I found a blog for a comedy/entertainment group that used the same template. One member of said group is an old boyfriend of mine, that one who broke my heart, and then broke it a couple more times – and he’s not a bad person or anything, it just didn’t work out no matter how much I wanted it to work. Anyway, seeing the look of “my blog” on that blog felt disorienting, and the idea of changing things around took root.

I was experimenting with Blogger in Draft a few nights ago, and inadvertently changed my whole design. I wasn’t ready for THAT to happen, so I quickly went back to my old template, and moved a couple of page elements that had gotten switched around. I don’t know if I got the layout back exactly the same as it was before, but it was close enough for me. Still, some of those designs are really cool and interesting, and a few of them reflect my current mood, my place in time. I’m excited to explore my design options further, and hopefully make some decisions about my layout soon.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about, just the past week or so, is changing from a blogspot url to a custom domain. When I looked at Blogger’s help pages the night before last, I was excited to see how little it would cost to make that basic change, without the need to change any of my content. I do want to change the design, and have the option to change content, but I want to make those decisions separately from just getting a new url that doesn’t have “blogspot” in it. Anyway, changing the url is another possibility that’s on my radar.

If anyone has tips or suggestions for things to try or include as far as design and format, and/or if anyone else has switched from a Blogspot or other blog platform url to a custom domain and wants to share their experience and things they learned, I'd be thrilled to hear from you! I'm comfortable at the computer and on the internet, but know NOTHING about web design and very little html, so the simpler the information, the better for me to understand and gain from it. :-)

Read 20 Pages Project: a new idea for climbing TBR Mountain

2010-05-11T18:08:00.002-05:00

Some weeks ago, I started reading the novel Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart, which I’d purchased over two years ago. After reading more than a hundred pages, I decided I wasn’t enjoying it enough to finish it, and donated it back to the public library. (I’d initially purchased it from their Booktique, seemed appropriate to let them sell it again to someone else.)

This experience has led me to think of a creative way to work my way through my TBR (To Be Read) Mountain, those over-400-books-I-own-but-haven't-read-yet. I'm already participating in the RYOB Challenge, am doing all right, and plan to continue that. But even if I complete the Challenge, let's be honest, I'll still have something like maybe-390-books-I-own-but-haven't-read-yet -- it's just an obscene amount of books, I realize that. So I started thinking of ways I might be able to make more progress through the unread books, and last week, I came up with the Read 20 Pages Project.

Note that this is not a Challenge, but a Project: something for me to try, independent of what other readers / book bloggers / bookaholics are doing or contemplating. Basically, when I'm between books, or want a break from my current read, I'll get a book from my TBR Mountain, and over the course of a few days, read at least twenty pages of it. For a book of 150 to 250 pages, reading twenty or twenty-five pages should give me a good sense of the writing style, and some information about character, plot, setting, etc. -- enough of these elements to decide if I'd probably enjoy reading the whole book. (At this point, I'm planning to include only novels and other works of prose in the Project, since most of my poetry books are much quicker to read than the novels, anyway.)

After reading twenty pages or more, I'll decide if the book is a keeper, one I'd be happy to pick up later on and read through, or if it should be weeded from my collection and sent on its way to another good home. To keep track of the books I'm sampling for the Project, I've created a new page on my blog, with the label "Read 20 Pages Project." I'm planning to just list the titles and authors, and the month and year when I read part of it. I'll probably start tagging them in my LibraryThing catalog, too, so I'll have another easy way to keep track, and see at a glance if I'm making any progress. Please, please, cross your fingers, and send me waves of willpower, so I can make some progress!

FreeVerse: Still trying to decide on a title

2010-05-05T04:49:00.002-05:00

Only a few hours after my mother died on October 14, 2009, I got up during the night and began writing this poem. I added to it on October 16, but then didn't really touch it until last week. Then, I decided to type it up on the computer, maybe do some editing as I went along, see how I felt about it. (My first version was handwritten in a notebook, with lots of phrases crossed out, etc. I needed to see it all typed out to find out if I liked it.) I made a few edits -- made some lines longer, added or changed a word or two, added at least one line that seems pretty strong. Looking at the edited version, all clean and printed, I decided I do like it. I haven't yet found a title for it, but I figured I'd share it here for FreeVerse anyway. :-)

My mother taught me
to love, in spite of all the wire
and bombs she tied around herself.

I learned a furious kind of devotion,
bound to the woman who brought me
to the world, yet kept her heart apart
from all who lived there.

When I was young, I didn’t know the distance
stretching endless between my mother
and everyone else was a sea she’d built
to make her life a lonely island –
cold and gray, but mostly safe.
She could not give herself away.

My mother wore anger as other women
wear bright colors. Nearly every day,
she painted her self-portrait with exquisite irritation,
ready to make of each hour
another brush stroke in her picture.
That was the mother my childhood remembers.

But the closing chapters also matter.
She quieted, she softened; she lost her
sparring partner – my father.
She gave her soul to waiting,
often patient, though sometimes restless,
until one midnight, finally, following
the path of her last breath,
she escaped.

Written Oct. 14 and 16, 2009 / April 29, 2010

How the heck am I doing? Reading Challenges update

2010-05-02T16:42:00.002-05:00

It is May 2nd, first four months of the year already done, and I haven't yet posted an update on my 2010 Reading Challenges. So, I decided today is a good time to take a look at my progress to date (if any).

The first challenge I decided to try for this year was the RYOB Challenge, or Read Your Own Books. As I wrote in this post, at the start of the year, I had 413 books tagged "tbr" (to be read) in my LibraryThing catalog. I set a goal to read 30 of those books during 2010. Since we're one-third of the way through the year, hopefully I've read about ten of them. Looking again at my LT catalog, the number of books I've tagged as "RYOB 2010" is...eleven! The good news is that I'm on track to meet my goal of 30 books. The bad news is, the number of books tagged "tbr" as of today has increased to 423. It's so hard to resist sales and bargains! See: Mailbox Monday for April 19, for example. Boo hiss boo hiss!

I've also made some progress on my other two challenges, the POC Reading Challenge and the Clover, Bee, and Reverie Challenge. For POC Reading, I committed to Level 3, to read between seven and nine books written by persons of color, or featuring central characters who are persons of color. I've read three of these, all books I already owned. The third was On Beauty by Zadie Smith, which I loved, so I'm hoping to read another of her novels, White Teeth, in the next couple months if I can. I haven't written reviews for any of the three POC books, but I'm hoping to do a post about On Beauty, to then link over on the POC Reading Challenge blog. (Poet Kevin Young, editor of The Art of Losing, is African-American, and there are a number of poets of color included in the anthology, but I wouldn't feel right about "counting" it toward that challenge.)

For the Clover, Bee, and Reverie Challenge, I decided to try the Octave level, meaning eight books of poetry, and at least two "badges." A "badge" is defined as two books that are connected in some way -- same author, same theme, same time period, that kind of thing. I've read four books of poetry so far, and am nearly done with my fifth, so very good progress there. I haven't done a badge yet, though, so I should start thinking about that for my subsequent choices.

To sum up: I'm in good shape to complete my 2010 Reading Challenges, but am not doing as well in the "acquire fewer books" department. Yeah, that sounds like my life! ;-)

Did ABC comedies pay tribute to Harper Lee?

2010-04-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

Last night on the ABC comedy The Middle, starring Patricia Heaton, youngest son Brick watched over an unhatched egg, brought it with him everywhere, covered it with a blanket at night, etc. He named the egg "Scout" before the baby chick even hatched.

The Middle is followed by Modern Family. In last night's episode, Phil's dad comes to visit in this super-huge RV, and brings Phil and family a dog. The dog's name was Scout. Kyle noticed the name was the same as Brick's baby chick and told us, but of course I was focused on the show and didn't hear him. A couple minutes later, I realized it was the same name and said something, then found out that Kyle had beaten me to the punch.

So, I was vacuuming the living room a little while ago and my mind was wandering. I remembered reading on Twitter not too long ago that it was Harper Lee's birthday.

Wait ... Harper Lee's birthday ... Scout ... and then another Scout ... Is this too coincidental??? So I looked on LibraryThing (check this page, scroll down to Common Knowledge section) and verified that yesterday was Harper Lee's birthday. We don't watch Cougar Town so I don't know if there was a Scout in there, too, but I'd just be really surprised if it was coincidental.

Ms. Harper Lee, how deeply your story has touched our lives and hearts, and our very culture. How wonderful that it continues to move and inspire us, fifty years later.

FreeVerse: "Anchor" by Rae Armantrout & mini-review

2010-04-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

Anchor

"Widely expected,
if you will,
cataclysm."

Things I'd say,
am saying,

to persons no longer
present.

Yards away trim junipers
make their customary
bows.

"Oh, no thank you"
to any of it.

If you watch me
from increasing distance,

I am writing this
always

This poem is from the collection that just won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Versed by Rae Armantrout. I was lucky enough to find it in the TSCPL catalog on the day the awards were announced, and checked it out the same afternoon. I have to admit, my first impression as I read through the early part of the book was, This really isn't my cup of tea.

I think a big part of my reaction to the book is simply that the style is quite different from what I usually read. The poems aren't long, and usually that's a plus, but many of them look similar to "Anchor," in that the lines are short, and the stanzas are short, and the poems themselves are short -- it's like, Where the heck is the poem? It's like a tree in winter, not just slim, but really bare. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but that I'm not accustomed to reading that style of poem throughout a whole volume.

Another thing that threw me off: a lot of the poems -- again, see the example above -- have no ending mark of punctuation. There are periods or other marks to show the end of sentences throughout the poem, but then at the end, there's nothing, so it's like the poem just drops off the ledge or something. I love my punctuation, and that kind of thing is hard for me to adjust to. They aren't all like that, some of them do end in periods, but many do not.

I liked the second half of the book better than the first half. Then a funny thing happened: after finishing the book, I skimmed back through some of the poems from the first half of the book, and found some that I liked better on revisiting them. So, I'm quite glad I got the chance to read this one when I did, and I think it stretched my poetic mind a bit. "Anchor" is from the second half of the book, and it's one of just a few that I liked a lot on first reading.

Review: The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing

2010-04-24T21:23:00.000-05:00

I received The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm so so grateful that I did. Thank you to LT and to the publisher, Bloomsbury, for the opportunity to read and review this book.

As I read the book, I marked the Table of Contents to indicate poems I particularly liked, or which echoed and articulated my own experiences of grief. Initially, I thought I might quote from a few of them in my review. But now I find I cannot choose, as I've marked about 80 poems. I also noted a handful of what I considered "classic" poems on grief, many of which have been widely anthologized already but surely belong here as well, including "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas, "Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes --" by Emily Dickinson, and "Elegy for Jane" by Theodore Roethke.

I was very impressed with the strength of the whole collection. Although I didn't love every poem (and with an anthology, it's likely no one does except the editor), my reactions are a reflection of my own tastes, not upon the quality of the poems. There really is "something for everyone," or at least for everyone familiar with grief, in this amazing collection. The editor, Kevin Young, is to be commended for bringing a great variety of voices and styles together to form a cohesive volume.

Having lost both of my own parents, my father-in-law, and both of my grandfathers -- and three of these five losses within the past two years -- The Art of Losing isn't merely a book I won through LibraryThing; it truly feels like a gift, one I will cherish for many years, and share with others who might find comfort within its pages.

FreeVerse: A Box, A Life

2010-04-21T02:00:00.002-05:00

This is from a post I originally published on my blog at MySpace. (I checked the other day, and apparently I haven't logged into my MySpace account since October 2008. Jeff didn't know how that could be right, but I know it's been a LONG, LONG TIME, and I know how the months fly by when you're too frickin' busy.) The post is dated Sept. 3, 2007, but I wrote the poem in the fall of 1988. I'm not copying the whole post, just the intro (with a bit off-topic) and the poem.

"Some thoughts this evening: my mother, old poem"

It is 810pm and I have no idea how long I have to write this because the kids could be fighting again any second and Jeff might need help. I did have some nice time to myself today, especially while they were out shopping (though we have no money, but that’s another story). I added about a dozen books to my LibraryThing catalog. Sigh - I love LibraryThing!

I talked to my mom a few hours ago, about as exciting as usual - while we’re talking, if I’m not up and around, I always feel like I’ll fall asleep. I was stretched out on the futon in the basement (where I’m sitting now, in the book room), and it is just SO HARD to maintain a conversation with a person who has almost no life. Sometimes when I tell people my mom is in a nursing home, and that she’s been there since her late 50s (she just turned 62), they express surprise at how young she is to be a permanent nursing home resident. A few have asked me how it happened, how she could be in this situation. But to me, it’s not surprising; I might even have expected it.

In the fall of 1988, my classmates were beginning their senior year of high school, and I, having dropped out more than a year before, enrolled in a GED prep class and a non-credit creative writing class. One of the poems I did for the writing class was about my mother, and seems almost prophetic now, close to 19 years after I wrote it. It’s not one of my best, but it’s pretty good for a 17-year-old.

A Box, a Life

The box she lives in
Is shaken with blaring sounds:
Radio, television --
Chaos never ends

In this dull, dead hole.
It’s a world all by itself,
Silent only when she’s still.
Awake, she’s a wolf,

Growling at people
Who dare to enter her home.
One day when she grows feeble,
Box will become tomb.

(Now it's April 2010 again.)

I thought of this poem the other day, when I was driving, and whatever song I was listening to brought my mother to mind. (This next is not as morbid as it might sound at first.) I think it was Valerie who asked me, on the phone, after my mom passed away last fall, whether the funeral director, someone from hospice, or anyone at the nursing home had told me what condition my mom's body was in, when she passed away. I didn't know if I should be freaked out by the question, but said no, no one had told me. Valerie explained that my mom had basically been in a fetal position -- and probably her head, and part of her face, were against the railings on the bed.

A fetal position... Of course that didn't surprise me. The box that was her world grew smaller and smaller, and she rolled up to fit into it. I'd always believed she would.

(FreeVerse is hosted every Wednesday by the wonderful Cara at Ooh...Books! Click over there to find her latest FreeVerse post, and links to posts by others participating this week. And Happy National Poetry Month!)

Mailbox Monday, April 19 (Of course I needed more books!)

2010-04-19T17:31:00.005-05:00

This is my first Mailbox Monday post. I don’t get LOTS of books in the mail, and rarely more than one or two at a time. (And of course, I began this year planning to buy FEWER books … but please don’t ask how that’s been working out for me, that’s another story.) But a couple weeks ago, Better World Books had one of their Bargain Bin sales: selected titles priced at Five Books for Fifteen Dollars. I’ve ordered from them a few times in the past, but I don’t think I’d ever done the five for $15 deal before, and I suddenly thought, “I gotta check this out!” It took a little while to decide upon five books – okay, it took a longer time than it should have, and I could have been doing something more productive for 80% of that time – but I’m really happy with my choices.

When the package arrived on Saturday, here’s what it contained: Look at Me by Jennifer Egan – I just listened to The Keep on audio and really got into the second half of it and some of the twists, wanted to try another by her; The Only Problem by Muriel Spark, whom I like very much; Kissing the Bread, a large volume of “new and selected poems” by Sandra Gilbert, a well-known literary critic and perhaps lesser-known poet – I got one of her poetry books from the library a year or so ago and was quite impressed; The Death of Literature by Alvin Kernan, one of those criticism titles that had been on my “watch list” for a while; and A Dream of Mind, by a poet I’d like to know better, C. K. Williams.

The sixth book in the pile didn’t come by mail, but since it was also a weekend acquisition, I added it to the stack. It’s The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster, another of those writers I haven’t read yet but really want to. I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday to get a Lightwedge book light for my mother-in-law (with my membership and an extra coupon), and I browsed the bargain books, finding the Auster in hardcover for $5.98 – member price was $5.38, thanks very much. While in the store, I also took a few moments to examine copies of two books winning rave reviews these days: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and Matterhorn, a debut novel thirty years in the making by decorated Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes.

OH, I ALMOST FORGOT: I also got to play with Barnes & Noble’s nook e-reader!!! I walked into the store, and they have a nook booth set up just a few feet inside the door, it was SO GREAT!!! I walked away, then came back, and began by saying, “I have over 400 books at home that I haven’t read yet, so there’s no way I’m going to buy one of these, but can I just look at it for a few minutes?” And the two women were really cool about it. The navigation wasn’t the most intuitive – maybe I’m too used to my iPod Touch – but I’d certainly be open to looking at it again more closely. ;-)

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Head on over there to see what other bookish goodies came into book bloggers’ homes this past week, and be ready to add to your wishlist!

What I'm reading (still), and what's On Deck

2010-04-16T22:02:00.004-05:00

Small confession: this post is more for my benefit than for anyone else, and I apologize. I have a pile of books that I really need to get to soon, and I'm putting the list down here as an extended "note to self," so that I won't get sidetracked by something that looks good but can wait a little longer.

My currently reading titles are the same as they were last Saturday for the Read-a-Thon: King Dork by Frank Portman, which I am LOVING and hope to finish this weekend (depending on how many games Ryan plays in the pre-season baseball tournament tomorrow and Sunday, eek); The Art of Losing, the poetry collection I got from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, that's more than half read; and Zadie's Smith's On Beauty on audio. Three completely different books, and they're all great.

Then, I have four more books, none on audio at this point. Top two priorities are next month's selection for my book group, and another LT Early Reviewers book. The book group choice was made when I wasn't there, since Kyle had a music program at school, but it's perfect timing for me: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D Salinger. Why is it perfect? Because the narrator in King Dork talks about Salinger's book A LOT -- though not in a good way -- and one of the first big events that gets the action rolling is when he finds his late father's copy of the book. I read Catcher in my teens, but have never reread it, and I'm excited to reacquaint myself with it after enjoying Portman's book.

The other Early Reviewers book is called The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald, edited by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. It sounded like the kind of thing that appeals to me -- a writer talking about writing and memory, traversing the ground between memoir and literary criticism, exploring the writing process, and the effect of memory upon it. (At least this is what I'm expecting I'll find in there.) So, that kind of stuff interests me, and I requested it. I was surprised to find out I'd actually won it, though, after winning the poetry book the previous month -- and I thought, Oh God, I've never even read anything by Sebald! I recognized his name, I'm pretty sure at least one of his books (maybe more) is included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and clearly I was interested enough to request it, but man, I was wishing I'd had some exposure to the guy's work.

The last two were impulse check-outs from the library, so not critical, but there IS a time factor involved if I want to read at least SOME of each book. When the Pulitzers were announced earlier this week, I saw that the winner for poetry was Versed by Rae Armantrout. I KNEW I'd seen it somewhere, recently, and immediately I thought, "I wonder if they have it at the library." They did, and it was checked in, and I decided I'd head over right after work and get it if it was still checked in -- and it was, so I did. I still don't recall where I saw it, and that bugs me a little, but that's okay. My other check-out is also poetry, A Worldly Country by John Ashbery, one of his books I hadn't heard of before, and not far from the other one on the shelf, so I grabbed it. Since they're both poetry, I should be able to at least dip into both of them in the next two weeks, get a feel for them, before I need to return them.

Whew, I think that's everything! Time to close, get ready for bed, and probably read some more King Dork before I fall asleep. I don't write too many reviews, but I think I'll review this one; it's too entertaining not to share. :-)

A learning experience: Wrap-up of my first Read-a-Thon

2010-04-11T21:55:00.003-05:00

My first 24 Hour Read-a-Thon is done, and I'm sorry to say this top part is gonna be a mess because it's Sunday night and I need to get ready for bed -- back to work tomorrow! I did answer the questions for the "End of Event meme" already (below), so hopefully the bottom part of the blog is more orderly. :-)

The Q&A covers a lot of what I might want to say. Additional notes: I read a pitiful 204 pages (approximately), though the 75 or so pages from On Beauty correspond to a full-size hardcover. (I own the hardcover but am listening to the audio; I just looked at the pages closest to where I started listening on Saturday and where I ended.) In a way, I'm disappointed that I didn't get more read, but mostly I feel like it's my own fault, so I'm disappointed in myself. As I say in the title, though, it was a learning experience; I'm not going to beat myself up about it, and I REALLY ENJOYED the time I was able to spend reading. (No, I didn't track time spent reading, didn't even try.)

One cool thing: last night around 10pm, I sat in the living room with my two boys, and all three of us were reading. A few minutes after we all started, my husband -- YES, my husband, who has been unemployed for six months and STILL hasn't read the one book I told him he really should read since he has all this extra time, To Kill a Mockingbird -- EVEN MY HUSBAND came down to the living room with a basketball book and sat down and read for a while. This "whole family reading" happens so rarely, I can't say the last time it might have happened before last night. After a couple chaotic hours in the evening, it was wonderful and peaceful, even if it was only 20 minutes or half an hour. There's some hope for my boys yet!

Now I'm thinking I'm forgetting something ... and darn it, just when I was thinking my husband can be so great (see above), he comes down and says, "You really have to just stop and turn off the laptop now and get to bed." ARGH!! Whatever I was thinking of saying must remain forgotten and unsaid --- but I've covered enough, you get the picture.

End of Event Meme Questions

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
Most of the times when I wasn't actually reading. Part of the evening was very stressful, after husband and sons got home from baseball practice and we all took turns being in foul moods. :-(
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
One of my books was King Dork, a YA novel by Frank Portman, and it made me laugh out loud multiple times. One I read a few weeks ago that would be great for the Read-a-Thon is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Not really, things seemed to go along pretty swimmingly from what I could see. But one observation: you can never have too many cheerleaders! ;-)
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
This was my first one, so I don't have anything to compare it to. One good idea: on my cheerleading team, the head cheerleader assigned a group of cheerleaders to cheer for readers whose names began with the same letter. I was one of the handful of cheerleaders assigned to readers in the "M" group. It was VERY helpful to have a small subset of readers to focus on.
5. How many books did you read?
I read parts of two novels, sadly I didn't finish either one.
6. What were the names of the books you read?
In addition to King Dork, I listened to the audiobook of On Beauty by Zadie Smith.
7. Which book did you enjoy most?
I'm really enjoying both of them, but I have to give the edge to Zadie Smith.
8. Which did you enjoy least?
See # 7.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
Granted it was my first time, but I found that cheering can take longer and be more "involved" than one might think.
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
If my schedule allows in the fall and/or next year, I really hope to participate in the Read-a-Thon again. At least for my next one, I'd probably focus on reading, and not sign up to be a cheerleader -- just hop around some of the blogs and leave comments "unofficially" without COMMITTING to cheer, and of course do some tweeting, which wasn't as stressful for me. ;-)

Finally, I am truly thrilled that this event exists and is so popular with book bloggers, because it makes me very happy to know that others value books and reading as much as I do. Thank you a thousand times to the organizers, cheerleaders, mini-challenge hosts, and everyone involved, for making time to READ, and to share and promote our devotion to books and reading. YAY, TEAM READ-A-THON!

Quick notes before I start Read-a-Thon

2010-04-10T08:29:00.001-05:00

My tea is steeping, and as soon as I get my breakfast ready, I'm going to start reading King Dork by Frank Portman. I am slightly bummed because I forgot my poetry anthology, The Art of Losing, at work yesterday, so won't be reading any of that one today. :-( I left early because we were going to the KC Royals game last night, and wanted to get an early start out of town. When I was collecting all my stuff to get out of there, I was carrying my coat but not my book. But, heaven knows I have plenty of other poetry books here at home, so I can get some poetry in today if my mood requires it.

We didn't get home from KC till just after midnight, and I didn't get to sleep till after 1am, so I knew I wouldn't be up to start at my time zone's official start time of 7am. I was okay with that -- part of the reason I agreed to go to the game was because I could then claim more time for myself and my reading today, when we don't have other plans. ;-) So it's about 820am now, and I'm a little tired, and I have a bit of allergy-related stuffy-head headache. But my head will feel better as I get moving, and when I've started having breakfast, and of course when I start READING.

A couple cheerleaders have already left me comments today on my last blog post, and their encouragement and enthusiasm is MUCH appreciated on this sleepy morning!!! I'll get my laptop set up later so I can spread the reading love, too. Thank you, Cheerleaders!!!

RAH RAH READ-A-THON!

2010-04-08T20:33:00.006-05:00

This Saturday, April 10, is the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, a very popular event in the book blogging community. I realize I’m not technically a book blogger, but I’ve learned some names, I read some of the blogs, I follow a handful of bloggers on Twitter, and if people want to set aside 24 hours to read books, read blogs about books, write blogs about reading books – okay, seriously, this sounds to me like a day in paradise, right?!?!? I’ll get a Heath Mocha Frappe (previously Frost), my pile of books, and my laptop, and it will be perfect.

I also took the plunge last night and signed up to be a cheerleader during the event. I only committed myself for one hour, since I’ve never done the Read-a-Thon as a reader or as a cheerleader, and I want to spend as much time reading as I possibly can. But as a cheerleader, I get to visit the blogs of other Read-a-Thon participants, and leave them encouraging comments, and support them in their efforts to read as much as they can. (I think very few people do the WHOLE 24 hour experience: naps are allowed, and everyone knows we all have other responsibilities, schedule conflicts, etc.) I found out this morning that I’ve been assigned to Team Shelley. At first I thought, I wonder who Shelley is? Then I found out there are four teams, all with poetic names: Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Wordsworth. Each team is assigned to visit a set of participating readers, and they determine the groups by bloggers' names – so Team Keats cheers for readers whose names start with A through C, Team Byron is D through J, etc., and there’s an alphabetical list of readers so you know whom to visit. You can also cheer using Twitter, and the #readathon hashtag – I predict LOTS of cheerleaders will be tweeting! The head cheerleader for my team is a blogger I’d never heard of (and NOT named Shelley, har har), and I’m sure a lot of the other cheerleaders and readers will be new to me, too. I’m excited to see a lot of new blogs and feel like part of the community, so I think it will be really fun for me, as well as a way to support and encourage other Read-a-Thon participants. :-)

And finally, what the heck am I going to read??? Well, I think I can do a fair amount of housework on Saturday while listening to my current audiobook, On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Since I just started it last weekend, there’s no fear that I’ll finish it, and since I’m enjoying it so far, I expect it will be a good companion for however long I end up cleaning. My current print book is a poetry anthology called The Art of Losing; I’m on page 114, and the last poem is on page 292, so I’m somewhere between a third of the way and halfway through. I anticipate reading some of that on Saturday, but I’m also thinking of things I’ve heard are “good” to read during the Read-a-Thon: lighter fiction, humor, mysteries, thrillers and other page-turners, basically the kind of books where you enjoy the story and get caught up in it and don’t realize that you’ve been reading for three hours and barely looked up from the page. My guilty pleasure book from last fall, Austenland by Shannon Hale, would have been an AWESOME choice for the Read-a-Thon. Also, one of my recent reads, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, would have been great as well.

Looking at my bookshelves a few days ago, King Dork by Frank Portman caught my attention. It’s technically YA, but got a great review in Entertainment Weekly when it was first published, and plus one of my fellow transportation librarians, Kendra, is a Frank Portman fan, and since Kendra is cool, then Frank Portman and his book are probably cool too, “Dork” notwithstanding. And if I do like that one and actually finish it, then I don’t know what I’d pick up next. It will be a great adventure just to get that far! Yes, I think it will be a wonderful day.

Reading notes: My growing list of unfinished books

2010-04-05T20:46:00.001-05:00

As you might recall, I struggled to get through Thackeray's Vanity Fair. I'd put it aside to read a book for another commitment, I'd read parts in paperback and some of it on my iPod, I was up and down with it for weeks -- and when I finally finished it, I was so happy! I'm almost embarrassed to say that, soon after that, I checked out a 2-disc DVD version of Vanity Fair from the library (not the Reese Witherspoon one, but an earlier production by A&E), watched it during several treadmill sessions, and enjoyed it very much. I might have enjoyed the book more if I'd seen a movie version first, and could keep better track of who was who, and who was where. Anyway, it's ironic that after taking so long to finish the damn book, I still wasn't ready to let the story go.

There have been a few other times lately when I thought I'd get into a book and found myself mistaken. First, one of the books I wrote about in this post, called Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment. I started reading it within just a few days of buying it, and it started out much as I expected. But as I read, I couldn't help thinking, "24 minutes, twice a day, every day...in this house, and with these kids around here???" So yeah, I haven't quite gotten back to that one yet.

In that same blog post, I mentioned that I bought Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko because it was my book group's choice for our April meeting. I started reading it, but found it wasn't grabbing me too quickly. Then, I found out that one of the boys will be having a musical program at school that same night. No offense to Leslie, but since I knew I wasn't going to make the meeting and I hadn't fallen in love with the book yet, I lent it to another member so he could read it before the discussion. This one isn't abandoned, but merely delayed.

This past weekend, though, I did abandon a book, and I feel quite good about my decision. One of those novels that sounded interesting, got decent reviews, sat on my watch list for a while, and then I found an old library copy on sale at the Booktique a couple years ago and instantly bought it. (I had put this comment in my LibraryThing catalog: "Groundhog Day bargain!" That almost made me want to keep it.) After deciding I wasn't going to read Ceremony right now, I went to one of my bookcases and pulled out Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart. It wasn't a difficult read, parts of the story were interesting, and for a while I was willing to follow the main character, Misha, wherever Shteyngart decided to send him. (One recurring joke that I loved: while Misha is stuck in Russia, his girlfriend is back in New York and starts a relationship with a professor who Misha used to know and now doesn't like. It's supposed to be based on the author, and his name is something like Jerry Shteynfarb -- yet that also reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld, so it just cracked me up on two different levels.)

I read about 100 pages of the book, then started thinking, "Am I enjoying this enough to continue?" I started listening to my next audiobook on Saturday, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and though I only got partway into disc two, I felt it was much more on my wavelength than Absurdistan was. I had read to about page 140, and decided I didn't like it enough to finish it. I brought it back to the Booktique today, and I have no regrets. It's not a bad book, but it just wasn't for me. I started my newest LibraryThing Early Reviewers book last night, a poetry anthology, and I already love it. I feel I'm back to where I should be.

Belated post-Patty Griffin show post

2010-04-03T22:42:00.001-05:00

FINALLY posting about the Patty Griffin concert that Jeff and I were lucky enough to attend exactly one week ago, in Lawrence, Kansas. Patty was amazing. Her voice in concert is fantastic, very much like what you hear on her CDs. The "second billed artist," not really an opening act because he played most of the songs with Patty and her band, was singer and guitarist Buddy Miller. I wasn't familiar with him except from his backing vocals on some of Patty's songs, and he was excellent as well.

One thing that was different, and totally cool, was that after Buddy sang one song by himself, all of the sudden, Patty and two of the backing musicians came out, and she sang with Buddy on every song, then she and the other two guys left the stage and Buddy did one last song by himself. (I remember the last one was "All My Tears," an old gospel / bluegrass traditional song. His wife, Julie Miller, sings that one on the Songcatcher soundtrack album.) Then pretty soon, Patty and her band came out, and while she also sang a few songs by herself with just her guitar, most of the time, Buddy Miller was right there with the rest of Patty's band, playing guitar and singing backup. So it wasn't like "opening act / headliner," but like first and second billed acts who really like each other and like working together, with genuine mutual respect and appreciation of one another's talents.

During the second half of the show, I suddenly had this feeling that everyone in Liberty Hall, seeing and hearing Patty Griffin and her talented band, were the luckiest people in the world -- that there was literally no better place to be at that time, on the whole planet, than at the Patty Griffin concert. Even though we were in the very last row in the balcony, and couldn't see as well as I had hoped, still it was a fairly intimate venue, and the music was...everything. It was everything good and beautiful in the world, wrapped into about two and a half hours.

Quick rundown of what Patty sang. As I told Jeff, "nothing from the first or third albums," which surprised me slightly, but I knew the focus would be the newest album, and the other selections all fit really well with the mostly gospel tone of the new album. From that album, Downtown Church, I think she sang everything except "Virgen de Guadalupe" (the Spanish song), and "All Creatures of Our God and King" (my least favorite from the new album, so I was cool with that). She sang "Standing" quite early in the show, from Impossible Dream, and later sang "Love Throw a Line." One of the songs she sang on her own was "Mary" from the album Flaming Red; THAT was the song that made me cry. From Children Running Through, she sang the wonderful "Heavenly Day," as well as "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)." Finally, two songs I didn't know: "I Do Believe," which she said she recorded for an upcoming Waylon Jennings tribute album and would have put on the new record if she'd known it, and an old song of hers called "Little God" that never made it onto an album. I don't know how I felt about that last one, but the Waylon Jennings cover was awesome, another one that she sang with just her guitar.

I will close by saying that Jeff was a wonderful date. :-)

Here, I'll try to embed two videos from YouTube, one of "Heavenly Day," and one of a performance with Natalie Maines of the song "Mary" -- that one from the second album, that made me cry. That Patty, she is the best.

A blah blah blog post

2010-03-25T19:10:00.000-05:00

So I have a little bit of "home alone" time, and so many things that I could do, and a few that I probably should do, like walk on the treadmill (and that would also mean watching Lost from two nights ago, and it's supposed to be an amazing episode, but yeah, I don't think the treadmill is gonna happen tonight). But I decided to start with a blah blah blog post, because I've been depressed since yesterday afternoon, and I have that deep yearning inside that, when paired with a dark mood, usually means I need to do some writing. I haven't the time or brain power to properly CRAFT anything, thus, the blah blah blog post, where I write about as many of my scattered thoughts as I can in the time allotted, in hopes that it will bring a touch more clarity and order to my head, and at the same time there's the chance that all the typing will, very simply, make me feel better.

And so.

One reason I don't have the luxury of time is that when Jeff and the boys come home, I will begin working with Kyle ASAP on his math. Forgive me if I already told this story, I don't recall telling it. Some weeks ago, we found out that Kyle got one of the top four highest scores for his grade on this math assessment. The four highest-scoring kids from each grade, at each school in the district, get to participate in a math competition called SUMday -- something like "Students United in Mathematics," yes it does sound goofy but whatever. Well, SUMday is this coming Saturday, starting at 9am, and not only is Kyle in the competition, but I volunteered to be a parent helper. I just got the official word TODAY that my assignment will involve grading some of the completed tests. Yippee. Why did I sign up for this again??? Oh right, I didn't know I'd be depressed in the days leading up to the event, which makes everything from getting out of bed to driving home from work, and pretty much everything in between, seem like a challenge. I also didn't know I'd spend the intervening weeks looking at so many VERY DIFFICULT math problems with Kyle, and trying to help him, and heaven help me, looking through his SUMday study guide so I would know how to figure out the area of a triangle, the volume of a cube, or the sum of the interior angles of a regular nonagon, and could then impart that information to my child.

(Short aside: I'm glad I got selected for grading papers and NOT for monitoring kids who are taking the tests. I MUCH PREFER doing the grading, which could be viewed as a cousin to proofreading, which I really like, and I'm pretty good at it if I do say so myself.)

Saturday evening, incredibly, Jeff and I are going to see Patty Griffin in concert in Lawrence. Patty is amazing, my favorite singer, and I've been listening to her for five or six years and have never seen her live. I should totally be walking on air this whole week!!! But no, I'm stressed about math, stressed about work, depressed and feeling bad about myself, feeling so fat but not wanting to exercise... oh God the list just goes on, you get the idea. But it's like I don't really believe that we're going to the concert. It's like this wonderful fantastic thing that can't possibly be happening to ME because I'm a lazy fat sack and my husband's unemployed and the kids drive me crazy and I can't get out of my own way to get anything done ever --- it's like the idea of seeing Patty live in concert is a dream, and I know I'll wake up and just be back in my regular life where the walls are falling in on me.

Whew. I must be at a stopping point, I'm suddenly feeling wiped out. My mind has paused between topics, and my fingers want a rest. There's more I've been thinking of writing about, in recent days, but those should be separate posts, IF I can get around to them after SUMday and Patty. I'll try.

FreeVerse: "Small Bodies" by Mary Oliver

2010-03-24T21:10:00.001-05:00

So often, I think about participating in FreeVerse, a weekly meme hosted by Cara at Ooh...Books! on Wednesdays. And so often, Wednesday sneaks up on me and I think, "Darn it, it's already Wednesday again and I don't have a poem to post for FreeVerse!" Today, I brought one of my Mary Oliver books to work with me, Red Bird from 2008, skimmed through it, and decided to post a poem called "Small Bodies." Then, I found out that although some of the restrictions of the recent change in our web filtering program have been loosened, and I'm able to read blogs with blogspot, typepad, or wordpress urls, when I typed in blogger.com to try to write a post, I got blocked. So here it is, about 8 1/2 hours later than I originally hoped to post it, but still technically Wednesday. Without further ado, a poem by the amazing and wonderful Mary Oliver.

Small Bodies

It is almost summer. In the pond
the pickerel leap, and the delicate teal have brought forth
their many charming young,
and the turtle is ravenous.
It is hard sometimes, oh Lord,
to be faithful.
I am more boldly made
than the little ducks, paddling and laughing.
But not so bold
as the turtle
with his greasy mouth.
I know you know everything –
I rely on this.
Still, there are so many small bodies in the world,
for which I am afraid.

--- Mary Oliver

Of Paper, and Its Work

2010-03-20T16:10:00.001-05:00

For weeks now, Jeff has had piles of paperwork and folders set aside in an area of our bedroom, waiting for me to sort through them and determine what can be recycled. This morning, after sleeping in, I woke to a few inches of snow, which immediately pushed away any ambition I might have had for getting dressed today. As I finished breakfast, Jeff suggested that perhaps I could sort through some of that paperwork today. I considered a bit, and said, "Maybe."

So that's what I did, for maybe two hours or so, and weeded out a lot of paper to be recycled, and another pile to be shredded first and then recycled. And the thing is, it's not easy for me. One of the folders held all kinds of forms, mail, and notes about my mom. I took out all the old account statements from the nursing home so they could be shredded, and some other papers here and there, but I couldn't go through everything. Certain categories of things, I just jumped right past, thinking, "I'll look at those later on, I don't want to deal with them today." (Of course, that's the story of my life: always tomorrow, not today.)

For someone as much in love with paper as I am, and in love with all the words upon the leaves, sorting through what looks like junk to most other people brings memories to the surface of my mind, and then the emotions that follow close behind. Each sheet is like a breath, a moment I lived through, a note I wrote about my mom's failing health as a nurse or social worker told me what I needed to know, and what I must do next.

One thought I had very soon after my mom passed away was, "I guess I'm not her Health Care Proxy anymore." I'd signed the paper, agreed to make the decisions regarding her care and treatment whenever she was unable to make them on her own. A lot of the paper that collects in the grooves of our lives is truly not important -- "waste paper," to be recycled, or trashed, or used for packing material or art projects. But the Health Care Proxy form is something else completely: it's a promise that, in the same way a parent takes care of and protects a baby or child, holding its fate as well as its small body in strong, grown-up hands, the adult child will hold the fading parent close, return the love they received in the beginning to the parent who gave it, to make that last fall as soft and peaceful as they can.

Whole worlds can exist in small groups of words, making a single sheet of paper so full of life, it might jump and fly away on its own.

I FINISHED IT! -- and other notes on recent reading

2010-03-14T21:27:00.005-05:00

What a difference a day can make. I wrote the title of this blog post YESTERDAY around 5pm. It's now Sunday, getting close to 930pm, and this post will need to be much shorter than I originally planned. But, I'm okay with that. I just want to get it written because I know I can't do it tomorrow -- or at least not at work, as I mentioned in my last couple posts.

Yesterday morning, I FINALLY FINISHED VANITY FAIR!!!!! I've been reading (and/or listening) to this one since late November, and at times I wanted to give up, so it feels a bit like I've climbed a mountain. I actually enjoyed a lot of it, but there were enough sections where I was dealing with the introduction of additional supporting characters, or lots of extraneous descriptions, or good heavens, the introduction of additional supporting characters WHICH INCLUDED lots of extraneous descriptions -- well, I wanted to toss up my hands and yell, "Just get on with it, Thackeray!" He could easly have cut the book by 50 or 100 pages and not lost anything critical -- and it would still have been over 500 pages, I think, no matter what kind of edition you had! I'll sum up my recent stretch toward the end by saying, I think that most of the characters pretty much got the finish they deserved -- so I found the conclusion satisfying.

My book group's selection for March was Dubliners by James Joyce. We'd read the story "The Dead" for our December meeting, but then the weather was terrible and several people didn't get there (myself included). I listened to the whole collection on audio a year or two ago, and enjoyed it. This time I was reading my print copy, and I guess didn't get started early enough, because I still had a few stories to go (not including "The Dead," which is the last and longest one in the book, but I did just re-read that one in December) by the time we met last Tuesday. I haven't decided 100%, but I'm leaning toward putting it aside now rather than finishing it -- because it's a re-read, and doesn't count toward any of my challenges, and also because I'm itching for other stuff.

Next month's selection -- oh right, I already mentioned that because I just bought it at Hastings, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. I think I'll read ONE more book from my collection before I start that one, something not too long. I am looking forward to the Silko book, in part, because it will count toward my POC Reading Challenge. I read a couple of books toward that challenge in quick succession in early February, but now haven't read another in a while, so the Silko will help me get back on track for that one.

Oh yes --- other recent reading. Another novel I read in late February / early March was Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee. I was drawn in from the very first page, even though the main character was initially NOT too sympathetic. But Coetzee got him away from the university and out to the country with his grown daughter, and put him through the ringer, and the character became more sympathetic -- perhaps not wholly redeemed, but at least partway there.

(The boys are screaming. Why are the boys screaming? I guess it's just as well I'm not in bed yet, I couldn't try to sleep with that racket. Jeff is up there, it's quieter now. Where was I?)

So yesterday before we went to Grandma's for supper, I grabbed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time from the shelf, figuring this would be a quick read before I get to the Silko book. I've had it for a couple years, and it's one of those that everyone else seems to have read, so I just picked it up and put it in my purse. After dinner, when everyone else was watching basketball (I think it was, with teams wrapping up their conference tournaments before tonight's big SELECTION SHOW, and the invites to THE BIG DANCE), and my nose stuffed and feeling achy, I went down to one of the bedrooms, laid down, and started reading this book.

I finished the novel early this afternoon. Yes, I read the whole damn thing in less than 24 hours. So, so, so very good. And just a page-turner!!! It doesn't happen often enough, where I have a book that I literally don't want to put down AND I actually have a fairly free pocket of time where I CAN read. (It helped that I'm sort of sick, and so had a better excuse to lounge around with my book.) As I was finishing my housecleaning later in the afternoon, I had a realization: When I've spent a block of time reading a good book, I never think later on, "I wish I'd spent more time doing ABC or XYZ instead of reading," or, "Instead of reading so much this weekend, I should have gotten ABC task done or worked on XYZ project." Like one reason I didn't write this blog earlier today, as I'd originally planned, was because I was reading The Curious Incident, and it was GLORIOUS to not have to stop, and WONDERFUL to make such quick progress in it and say to Jeff, "I'm going to finish this book today."

I also cleaned the kitchen this afternoon, and paid the next couple bills, and this evening I filed the state income taxes (with less than a 45-minute time investment, thank you very much -- I love that Kansas makes filing online SO EASY, I've done it at least four years in a row now). I cleaned the bathrooms yesterday and started a new audiobook while I worked. Oh, and I talked to my friend Marie in Maine this morning, first time in WEEKS, so that was great. :-) And this weekend was one hour "shorter" than usual since we've just started Daylight Saving Time. Damn, I did pretty good! On that note, I must close and get ready for bed. Just after 10pm, not too terrible. ;-)

Feeling better, thanks to book bargains!

2010-03-12T23:31:00.001-06:00

Today at work, I was feeling kind of blue. Parts of my day were somewhat productive, but I also had a difficult request, took quite a while to find a library that owned the right volume of the journal, one that also would hopefully not charge us an arm and leg for a 10- or 12-page article. I did get the request done with half an hour left in the day, and was able to pack two boxes of books that had been sitting in the back room way longer than I care to recall, and that felt pretty good. I'm having an important visitor in the library this coming Wednesday, and want to get some more things straighened up before then. Today wasn't as successful as I'd hoped, but it was an okay start, and I still have Monday and Tuesday to keep at it.

So anyway, Hastings is having a Friday-and-Saturday-only sale that includes "Buy two used items -- mix and match books, CDs, DVDs, and video games -- and get the third one for $1.00." During supper, Jeff and I watched a movie that he'd gotten from the library (The Boys and Girl from County Clare, I really liked it!), and then I went to Hastings on my own since the boys didn't want to go. It seemed like there were bunches of books I was interested in. After I had four in my hands, I went and browsed the DVDs for maybe 15 minutes, had one particular title in mind but didn't see it, so then went back to the books. I stopped to call Jeff and let him know I had four books in front of me and had to decide which ones I was actually getting. He was nice about it and it sounded like the boys were getting along for the most part.

After I talked to Jeff, I started looking at the section of Used Book Recent Arrivals, and found three or four more in that section that I took from the shelf and added to my arms. (I forgot to mention, I also got my Heath Mocha drink, so I was sometimes juggling the books and the cup, sometimes putting the cup on the shelf or the pile of books on the floor, to browse more easily. I did not drop or spill anything, that's always good!) I was most tempted by the poetry, finding several by authors I was familiar with. So there I was, back in the cafe, at a table with what remained of my drink plus seven or eight books scattered in front of me, flipping through and reading poems, trying to narrow the field to the final three.

The only book I knew I was getting when I went into the store was Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. That's our book group choice for April, and I'd called Hastings this morning to ask if they had a used copy. That book was the first in my "I have to buy this one" pile. What else did I end up purchasing? A small book of essays about poetry by Mark Strand, entitled The Weather of Words: Poetic Invention. Flipping through that one, I became enamoured of the end of one piece that includes this statement about a poem can do: "It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living." This book was already drawing me in, I bought it.

The third one is a more unusual and potentially embarrassing selection. It was in the philosophy/Zen/meditation section, but is also sort of "self-help." I am intermittently drawn to self-help-type books, usually related to moods and/or depression, or related to one's relationship with food/one's body size/one's weight, and how to change from the twisted and scary and dysfunctional relationship one has, to a more normal/less obsessive/less food-addicted relationship with that aspect of oneself. The thing about a lot of these books is, I either start reading them and don't finish, or I regret buying them before I even start. (This is more true with the eating/body image books than the moods/depression books -- but I've had it happen with books in both categories.) But this one was really calling to me, so yes, I put away John Ashbery, Sharon Olds, and N. Scott Momaday, and purchased Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment.

If I could ever make a committed effort to learn about and practice meditation, it would likely have a positive impact on both my moods and struggles with depression, and my less-than-healthy eating habits. So instead of getting another "You're Fat," or "You're Miserable," or even "Hey, You're Fat AND Miserable!" book, I got a "You Can Be Happier" book. It just felt like the right one to choose. (And it's a hardcover that only cost $4.99!) Hopefully I'll be able to work it into my near-term reading plans. Recent and near-term reading will actually be another post, hopefully this weekend, because right now I need to close up and get myself to bed -- it's almost 1130pm. But I had such a great time browsing and buying at Hastings, and got three books for less than $14.00, and watched a good movie with Jeff, and had my oh-so-good Heath Mocha Frost... it was just a good evening, after a not-too-super day, and I really needed to share and celebrate it. :-)

Software change further hampers blog communications

2010-03-11T19:37:00.001-06:00

A couple days ago, my work changed the program they use to block people from accessing certain kinds of websites on work computers. I completely understand the need for this, and for the most part, I understand why they block the kinds of sites they block -- because even if Facebook is a place to make professional connections, it's still a potential timesink for lots of people -- so yeah, some social media sites that lean more heavily toward the "social" side, I think it's fine to block them.

But what I found with this new software they're using is, if I go to a blog that has blogspot, wordpress, or typepad in the url, I get the message that it's blocked. I confirmed today that some blogs that DON'T have the platform name in the url, like My Friend Amy, are blocked, while others, like Books on the Nightstand, are okay. I can read entries in my Google Reader, so the blogs I subscribe to are still mostly accessible just for reading, but I'm peeved about the change, and it means that I can't work on a blog post of my own on Blogger, but would have to save it in Word (and then put on flash drive or e-mail to myself...fun, fun).

I realize I already don't spend enough time on my blog to grow any kind of following, and that I'm terrible at replying to comments that people are so nice to leave for me... I just hate that this is one additional thing that will leave me EVEN LESS time for blogging, and for visiting other blogs. I'm just annoyed.

Now, to try to end this whiny post on a more positive note: first, the boys have just started spring break, so no homework tonight, and when I get ready for work tomorrow morning, I won't have to listen to Jeff and the boys battling over what they're having for breakfast. Yay for some peace and quiet in the morning! Second, although they've had basketball on the local NBC station, it should be finished by 8pm, so I am planning to watch The Office, which I haven't done in quite a while -- even more miraculously, I'll be watching it while it's actually on, not a recording of it! (And yes, I'll try to walk on the treadmill while I watch, see how far I get.) So, things aren't bad really, and hopefully I'll be able to post a (long overdue) reading update over the weekend ... it could happen, keep your fingers crossed!

In which I make excuses for my silence

2010-03-01T15:21:00.002-06:00

I had a feeling I was overdue to write a blog post, and now I see, it's even been a few days longer than I thought it had. And so, here's some of what I've been doing the past couple weeks (or nearly that) since I last posted (and unfortunately not very much reading).

As usual, basketball. The boys' YMCA season just ended with a double header (yes, another double header) yesterday. In addition to those games on Saturdays, they'd had practice on most Monday evenings, and a few Tuesday evenings, except for the Tuesdays where we had a conflict with a SportZone game, or the night Jeff had a game and I had book group. Jeff's games ended around Feb. 9th, so that helped me out a bit. SportZone games have continued for both boys, usually one evening a week for each kid, plus they both have had SportZone practices on Wednesdays. Their last games are this coming Tuesday (Ryan) and Thursday (Kyle). Also this coming Tuesday: first parents' meeting for Ryan's team for the upcoming baseball season. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. At least these overlapping basketball games will be done soon, and I'm glad for that.

One thing that had been hanging over my head the past few weeks was the income taxes. I'm usually working on the federal return around Groundhog Day, and that just didn't happen. Then, I started doing my preparatory paperwork last Saturday, and planned to make good progress on them last Sunday. But then we had another minor snowstorm (4 or 5 inches was the total for our area), and Grandma had spent the night on Saturday and didn't go to church because of the weather, so we were all hanging around on Sunday, and not too motivated to do productive things. Well, Kyle had seen some commercials, and had been asking me for a couple weeks to check out Ancestry.com. He asked me again last Sunday, and I thought what the heck, I'll take a look and see what I could find.

By the end of the day Sunday, my family tree (and Jeff's too, really, because his mom was here and had TONS of dates, or at least months and years in a lot of cases, not only for her forebears but for Papa's side of the family too) had maybe 90 people in it. I was obsessively searching for information and documents about my dad's side of the family -- more specifically, about his biological mother, who died when he was six years old, on Christmas Day. (Is it any wonder he had mental / emotional problems??? Try telling THAT six-year-old that Santa Claus is real and will bring him wonderful toys and gifts.) Later in the week, Jeff was able to track down a couple pages of family history that my dad's Uncle Charlie had sent to me back in 2000. I'd never met him, but had written to him after Kyle was born to find out more about my grandmother (his sister) and great-grandparents. That letter helped me add to the tree and find more documents. I found a scan of my great-grandfather's draft registration from 1918, and a record of my great-grandmother bringing the three kids back to the US from Liverpool in the early 1920s! (She'd been born in Scotland, but my grandmother and her two brothers were born and raised in New York, so this wasn't "immigration" information, just very cool to find.)

This weekend, I was able to buckle down and finish the federal income taxes. I got them filed online late yesterday afternoon, following the two basketball games. The state taxes will be much easier, so I'm allowing myself a break of a few days before looking at them. The other thing I did this weekend was house cleaning, after not doing the best job on that the last couple weeks, either. I cleaned the kitchen and both bathrooms today, and hopefully I'll be able to get some dusting done soon, with basketball winding down. I haven't really looked at Ancestry.com this weekend, knowing that if I got going on there I'd never get anything else finished. (Yes, I did show a little self-restraint, believe it or not!) BUT, we signed up for a 14-day trial for the access to US historical records, so I want to spend some more time on there during this coming week, see what else I can glean from the records, before we cancel that before next Sunday and only have the basic "build and maintain your family tree online" access.

So my last post was the evening of Feb. 16th, a Tuesday. Right after that, something happened that put me in a difficult mood the rest of that week. I received an e-mail from a friend, one of my former co-workers at EDS. I hadn't seen or spoken with her in quite a while, and Jeff said that she hadn't sent us a Christmas card this year (though she usually does, and she's been on our card list as well). The subject line of the e-mail said "GREAT VIDEO!" It wasn't a personal message to me, but a video she was forwarding on to a whole bunch of people. As usual, it was an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal video.

I don't know if this friend and I ever talked about politics before, but the past couple years, she's sent out these e-mail blasts periodically to people in her address book, and they're always anti-liberal. I tend not to be very vocal about political issues, I think because I don't have any confidence in my ability to debate, I never really learned how, and as I've mentioned previously, I can often see good points from different sides, or at least good reasons why people feel or believe the way they do. But in the same blog post where I talked about cooperation, I tried to explain some of the foundations of my liberal beliefs. It's hard to have a blue-state perspective and live in a red state, and it just makes me talk LESS about politics. So, I probably never told this friend that I was leftward-leaning.

After I watched the "GREAT VIDEO!" that my friend had forwarded to me (and many others ... though I don't want to assume she sent it to everyone in her address book, I really don't know), I decided to reply to her. I wrote back only to her, and did not copy anyone else. I was short, but I think I was civil. I wrote:
Hi (...) - I hope you're well.

I'm glad to be on your contact list, but please, please, don't send me any more anti-liberal stuff.

Thank you.

Sorry to be short, gotta get ready for bed, always 1000 things to do and never enough time.

Marie

It was 930 on a Tuesday evening, and I had a kid talking to me, maybe climbing on my lap, and I had Jeff asking if I was about ready to go to bed, and I'm sure the TV was still on -- the usual pre-bedtime chaos.

My friend wrote back soon after, but we didn't see the reply till next morning. It said:
Sorry to hear that you've chosen that way of thinking...please don't send me any more form-type Christmas letters.

Best of luck to you and your family in this messed up world of ours, only worsening by your unwise-spending liberals. Want to pay my taxes and fund a raise that I've not gotten b/c of the ruining healthcare situation out there that's only planned to get worse when we go to socialized medicine?

Sorry, but you've lost a friend in this choice of yours...but again, you have that choice that you can make, so I've chosen this one.

After this response from my friend (former friend, I guess), there was a message from someone who'd chosen to "Reply All" which read, in part:

Wow! Amazing video!!!!!

Now, as you asked, let me pass this on.

My guess is that not one single person involved in the creation of this video actually "voted for you." (Prove me wrong.)

My hunch is that the people standing and applauding after seeing this were the same ones who, after Rush Limbaugh said he hoped "Obama fails" in the midst of the greatest depression since the 1920s said "amen" and "right on." (Ah - bipartisanship and America-first at its best!)

I could be completely wrong, but my suspicion is the head-nodders and ditto-heads who said anyone who dared to question the Bush-Cheney approach were "traitors" and "defeatists," that we all ought to "support the President," are the very same people who now cheer on that same chicken-hawk Dick Cheney as he does everything he criticized just months ago.

Don't get me wrong. I understand, there's a difference between "us" and "them."

"Us" can continually harass a legally elected President by questioning his long-proven credentials, call him Muslim when he is a life-long Christian, can even make light of his love of his spouse while the ranks of "us" justify "wide stances" in public restrooms, list hookers in their congressional phone books, and are filled with governors who "go hiking" with their mistress on the Appalachian Trail all the way to South America on Father's Day.

Yes. The health care initiative is a complete mess. Imagine, forcing people to - for the first time in our history - buy insurance. It will require your Grandma to be put to death. It's socialism at its very heart. Yeah! Amen! Well, except for the fact that all that is either a bold-face lie or something the no-no-no-never Republicans were first to introduce and support. (Oops. The cameras weren't supposed to be rolling, were they?)

Of course, "Us" is trying. When the people of this country went to local town hall meetings to discuss the problems of health care, Dancin' Dick Armey and his astro-grass-movement were there with yells and shouts and SCREAMS and Obama-as-Hitler posters. (How very American!) And when President Obama outlined his program of fighting terriorism in Afganistan, "us" told the country this "Muslim" scheduled this whole thing to deplace "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

So now, you're comin' for us. You promise you're gonna kick our ass and make everything right. You're gonna take back America. You're gonna make amends for getting your butts whipped good in 2008. Good for you. Just remember you're going to have to be more than just the GOnoPe party. You're gonna have to get us out of this mess your deregulations and business-will-take-care-of-business created. You're gonna have to - gasp - actually suggest something we ought to do. Then make it happen.

The best of luck on that.

Mind if we borrow your ascorbic film crew two years from now?

(Please feel free to pass this on!!!!!!!)

What REALLY got to me about this was, I remembered an earlier occasion where my former friend had sent something anti-liberal or anti-Obama, and someone came back and loudly disagreed, and obviously used the "Reply All" because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it. I looked at the newest message, sorted by sender name, and bingo, it was the same guy. (Have I mentioned in the past that I'm bad about deleting old e-mails? I am, I'm very bad at it.) So THIS guy, whoever he is, writes back to her and ridicules her beliefs and COPIES everyone else that got the e-mail, and HE is still on her distribution list. I, on the other hand, wrote to her PRIVATELY to ask that she not send me those kinds of e-mails, and she takes the opportunity to ridicule MY beliefs and to basically end our friendship.

So I was torn between wanting to say something mean to my former friend (like, "Remember that guy I set you up with on a blind date with all those years ago? He's married now! I bet you're still single and living with just your cat and dog, right?" or something like, "How interesting, YOU also send out form-letter Christmas cards, and you don't even have a family and kids' school and other activities filling up your non-work hours, so how busy can you be really?"), and wanting to reply to her and cc: the "Reply All" guy, and ask, "How come you're still sending e-mails to THIS guy, who makes fun of you to everyone, but you say mean things to me when I wrote to you directly and civilly?" (I also thought, I probably have more in common with him than I ever did with her, maybe I should just write to him instead!)

One more thing that gets to me: I was liberal before I ever MET this woman, and she was probably conservative before we met as well, yet still we were friendly at work, and kept in touch after I left that job. I tend to follow that old saying, that when you're looking for general conversation topics, it's best not to discuss politics or religion; I prefer to get along with people, so sue me.

In the end, I decided to do nothing, and say nothing (well, until now, in this post). I figured whatever I did or said would just make things worse. And although I was very moody and sort of off-kilter the rest of that week, the truth is, the friendship I'd had with this woman had pretty much run its course. I felt angry at her, annoyed with the situation, but no sense of sorrow over losing a friend. Mostly I was thinking of yet another cliched old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" And I was thinking of my dad's Uncle Charlie, and how much fondness I feel for him although I've never met him; and my friend Marie in Maine, my BEST friend, and the fact that we've played phone tag but haven't actually spoken in weeks and I hope she's all right; and my old friend Elizabeth from Smith, one of those people I've loved and lost touch with, and will miss for the rest of my life.

Article on Roger Ebert brings me to tears. (What's new?)

2010-02-16T19:26:00.000-06:00

I've already been on the computer too long, need to get myself changed and on the treadmill and ready for Lost (wahoo!), but I just read this WHOLE article and it's just fantastic. It's a feature article about Roger Ebert in Esquire, and dammit, it made me cry in a few different places! The article (written by one Chris Jones) is here. The first place I cried was this quote from Ebert, on page 4:

When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.

I remember my dad loved to watch Siskel and Ebert, so very many years ago.

Sometimes it's hard to remember, because remembering can hurt. I'm sitting here now thinking of my dad laying sideways on the bed, watching TV, and me watching with him, and an ashtray never too far away, and I remember the blanket my parents used to have on their bed. I must be seven or eight years old. My dad loved that Siskel and Ebert were in a theater and had a balcony, and he liked how they'd tell it straight, what was good and what they hated. I can't think of the two men together without then thinking of my dad. My Daddy.

Some thoughts on reading, on my son's birthday

2010-02-14T14:47:00.000-06:00

Today is Valentine's Day, and also my son Kyle's 10th birthday. Jeff and I have been parents for a whole decade. This is too frightening to contemplate for too long, so I'll quickly move on from there... But anyway, Kyle had three friends over last evening, and two of them spent the night, and one of them is still here, for another half hour (it's 230pm). So, both Kyle and Ryan have been involved with their company and haven't required a lot from Jeff or me, but at the same time, we've had extra kids here, and that can affect the general mood of the house, or make it a bit harder to just relax. But, it's been all right.

So I feel in a bit of a funk with regard to my reading. Since I began the POC Reading Challenge, I've read a memoir called Once upon a Time When We were Colored by Clifton Taulbert, and this morning I finished a poetry collection by Audre Lorde called The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance. The Lorde book also counts for the Clover, Bee, and Reverie poetry challenge, and both books count toward RYOB 2010. In fact, I think I'm off to a decent start all around: five completed for the RYOB challenge, and two finished for each of the other challenges. I have my next audio loaded on my MP3 player, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, a novel I've had for a couple years that's been calling to me from the bookshelf. I'm looking forward to starting it, but haven't done any cleaning today (see: my son's birthday, other kids in house, and whatnot), so it might be a few days before I dive into it. I have more titles in mind for my challenges, including a second memoir by Taulbert that I believe is a sequel to the first one I read.

This all sounds pretty good, like I've made an okay start and have ideas to make further progress, but there's something holding me back. Specifically, it's Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. I've had it for several years, started thinking during 2008, "Hey, I really should read that sometime," thought I'd get to it during 2009, FINALLY started it in late November, and here it is, halfway through February 2010, and I've been sometimes reading my print copy (800-page mass market paperback, not too easy on the eyes or comfy to hold) and sometimes reading it on my iPod Touch, and often enjoying it but sometimes just trying to get through the next chapter, but all the while with the feeling deep in my heart that it will take me forever to finish this book. The Stanza app on my iPod shows a percentage indicating where you're at in the book, and after two and a half months, I've read less than 60% of the book.

So what now? Do I try once more to push on and see if I have mostly "Hey, I like this!" chapters from here on, and less "Who is this character again and what is he doing here?" chapters and "Should I be reading something else?" moments? Do I put it "on hold" again for a couple weeks, read through a couple other (shorter!) books, then pick it up again? Or, just put it aside indefinitely, and try not to feel like a quitter? Or perhaps... try to find an audio version and see if I have more luck with that than the mmpb and iPod e-book versions? That last one might be a good option if I can find one with a decent narrator. Yes, I'll try to locate an audio version and give that a try before giving up. I'm not done yet... not quite done, anyway!

Joining two more Reading Challenges for 2010

2010-02-12T22:00:00.004-06:00

There is never never never enough time for me to get all my stuff together. I started a post LAST Friday about a reading challenge I'd decided to join, and here it is, Friday again, and I figured I should just start over, and talk (briefly) about BOTH of the challenges I'm starting, in one post.

First is the POC Reading Challenge, short for Persons of Color Reading Challenge. It just launched in late January, in response to yet another occurrence of "white washing" in a book cover's image: although the main character is a person of color, the cover design shows a white person. The POC Reading Challenge is a commitment to read books by and/or about persons of color. The levels are:

Level 1: Read 1-3 POC books
Level 2. Read 4-6 POC books
Level 3. Read 7-9 POC books
Level 4. Read 10-15 POC books
Level 5. Read 16-25 POC books

I've decided to commit to Level 3, because I know I've got books by authors of color on my shelves that I haven't read, and that will help my RYOB Challenge too. I've already read one, will likely start a second one soon, and have a few others in mind for the next few months. Oh -- and why am I signing up for this challenge? Because I believe in this project and the message behind it. The challenge sign-up post is here, and if you click around the blog, there are lists of books to help people get started, and links to other pages of interest and many helpful resources.

The other challenge I'm joining is called Clover, Bee, and Reverie, and it's a challenge to read more poetry. I'm pretty psyched about this one, because I have MANY poetry books on my shelves, still waiting to be read. Most of them would be "quick reads," and would (of course) also count toward the RYOB Challenge. Especially after my enthusiastic response to the Eavan Boland book I read in January (yes, one down!), it just made sense for me to pursue more poetry reading this year. The levels, and some additional information:

There are four levels of participation:

Couplet: Read 2 books of poetry

Limerick: Read 5 books of poetry, and finish at least one badge

Octave: Read 8 books of poetry, and finish at least two badges

Sonnet: Read 14 books of poetry, and finish two badges, and one expert badge

What is a badge? A badge just means you need to read two books of poetry that are connected in some way: same time period, some subject matter, same form, same author, etc. An expert badge means four books, same constraints.

I'm going to aim for the "Octave" level, again focusing on books I already own and haven't yet read, as much as possible. Wish me luck!

FreeVerse: Against Love Poetry by Eavan Boland

2010-02-03T03:00:00.005-06:00

A few weeks ago, I read a book of poems by Eavan Boland called Against Love Poetry. I got it after Thanksgiving 2008, so I’d only had it in my TBR Mountain a little over a year – not bad for me! I attended a poetry reading when I was in Tucson for library school, and Boland was one of those who read. I enjoyed her poems, and her wonderful Irish voice, rolling like light out of the desert.

In the years since, I’ve kept my eyes open for Boland’s work, but haven’t sought it out. I actually own one other book by her, a longer one called An Origin like Water: Collected Poems, 1967-1987. I probably purchased it at the Friends of the Library book sale a few years ago, since it’s an ex-library copy – I’ll say 2006 or a bit earlier, since there’s no “Date acquired” in my LibraryThing catalog, and I joined LT in summer 2007. But clearly, I haven’t been a true devotee of her writing.

Against Love Poetry could change that. I really enjoyed this book, and there were lines in the latter half of the collection that had me near tears – and I finished reading it at my son’s basketball practice! The poem “The Burdens of a History” is only a few pages, but it’s broken up into five short numbered sections. It moves, it wants to travel, but it’s treading and retreading the same area. These lines are from section IV:

Distances were less ambitious.
Car parts and wheels in the ditches
seemed to say that travel was an error
whose starting point would end back here
(p. 38)

I found section V completely striking, and I want to quote the whole thing.

When the storm broke they were under it.
The heat cracking. Rain hissing on the car.

They counted from the thunder on their fingers.
And waited in the freshening, lifting air
for the first strike of lightning which –
if it did not kill them –

would show them exactly where they were.
(p. 39)

The poem “Limits 2” contains only one sentence, and though I’ve never been in “the Dublin hills,” I can see and hear the scene Boland paints:

the season in, season out
sound of
the grind of
my neighbor’s shears:
beautiful air of August,
music of limitation, of
the clipped
shadow and
the straightened border
(p. 33)

Boland explores the changes of voice and accent that often occur when people move away from their homelands in the poem “Emigrant Letters.” I’ve long been intrigued by the endless varieties of speech, especially since college and graduate school introduced me to people from all over the U.S. and from other countries. I didn’t really know what a Massachusetts dialect was until a few years after I moved away. In the poem, the speaker hears an Irish voice while in a Detroit airport. She continues,

Its owner must have been away for years:
Vowels half-sounds and syllables
from somewhere else had nearly smoothed out
a way of speaking you could tell a region by,

much less an origin. I reached the gate, boarded,
closed my eyes and rose high over
towns, farms, fields—all of them at that very moment
moulding the speech of whoever lived there:

An accent overwritten by a voice. A voice
by a place.
(p. 42)

All the poems I’ve quoted from above are from the second part of the book, called “Code.” The first part of the book is a poem sequence called “Marriage,” and the book is dedicated to Boland’s husband. Traditionally, a comedy – one of the Shakespeare or Jane Austen sort – ends with a wedding, “and they lived happily ever after.” The curtain closes, and the audience doesn’t see the day-to-day scenes of married life. Traditionally, love poetry is about courtship, about passion, and sometimes about unrequited love. (Cue the violins!) Boland’s poems are “against” that kind of love poetry, and instead shed light on what happens after the play ends.

“Against Love Poetry” is actually a prose poem, the second poem in the “Marriage” sequence. It begins:
We were married in summer, thirty years ago. I have loved you
deeply from that moment to this. I have loved other things as well.
Among them the idea of women’s freedom. Why do I put these
words side by side? Because I am a woman. Because marriage is not
freedom. Therefore, every word here is written against love poetry.
(p. 5)

Near the end of the poem, she adds, “It is to mark the contradictions of a daily love that I have written this.” Time and again in this sequence of poems, Boland includes those details that are part of “a daily love”: husband and wife in the same room, each silently reading his and her own book or magazine; husband reading the newspaper, wife speaking to husband but he doesn’t hear her; children asleep in the next room; the excitement and anxiety of buying their first home. In “Thanked Be Fortune,” she writes, “[W]e learned by heart / the code marriage makes of passion -- / duty dailyness routine” (p. 16, italics in original).

Having been married for over 12 years myself, I know too well the thoughts and feelings Boland expresses in these poems. The centuries-old idea that getting married is the goal – the end of the story, or at least of the “interesting” part of it – and the more modern idea that the same passionate kind of love people often experience before marriage should continue much the same during married life (although there’s now a kid crying in the next room, etc.), both do a disservice to the complicated love that many married couples share. The journey of many years together, valuing one another on multiple levels, respecting the commitment made to one another, and occasionally annoying the hell out of each other – a truly good marriage is everything and the kitchen sink! Boland doesn’t paint a thirty year marriage as paradise, but as a solid, trusting, and rewarding relationship between two people who know each other completely, and still enjoy being together.

Against Love Poetry has certainly increased my appetite for more poetry, and specifically more by Boland. I’m thinking that I’d make great progress in my RYOB Challenge if I resolve to read more poetry collections in the next few months, because I own a significant number that I haven’t yet read … and because they’re usually quick reads!

FreeVerse is a weekly meme hosted by Cara of Ooh...Books! Head over to her blog to see her FreeVerse posts, and find other bloggers who are reading or writing poetry.

The Classics Circuit: The Children by Edith Wharton

2010-01-28T10:17:00.004-06:00

I’ve been a fan of Edith Wharton’s novels for over 15 years, so I jumped at the chance to participate in this tour, and am glad it compelled me to read one of several Wharton books that I already owned but hadn’t previously read. Many, many thanks to Rebecca Reid for bringing us The Classics Circuit. To see more "stops" along Wharton's tour, click here.

First, a smalI confession: I just finished reading The Children two days ago, my tour date is tomorrow (I'm writing on the evening of 1/27), and I don’t know how I can get enough coherent thoughts together to really do justice to the book. I feel like I could spend a week writing about it, yet in the limited time I have, I’m not sure where to start. I fear I’ll just share my impressions as I think of them, and it will be a jumbled mess. This should not reflect upon your opinion of the book, as Wharton is too polished and intelligent to make a jumbled mess of anything.

Description (from the back of the book):
A bestseller when it was first published in 1928, The Children is a comic, bittersweet novel about the misadventures of a bachelor and a band of precocious children. The seven Wheater children, stepbrothers and stepsisters grown weary of being shuttled from parent to parent “like bundles,” are eager for their parents' latest reconciliation to last. A chance meeting between the children and the solitary forty-six-year-old Martin Boyne leads to a series of unforgettable encounters.

Martin Boyne meets the Wheater children on a cruise, when he and the eldest child, Judith Wheater, find themselves seated together on deck. From the moment Boyne first sees Judith, he is awed by her maturity and self-assurance. He can’t tell if she is mother or step-mother to one of more of the other children, or a governess, because she looks quite young, but directs the whole brood as though she were their mother. As the true governess, Miss Scope, soon tells Boyne, “Judith’s never been a child – there was no time.” Judith’s parents, Cliffe and Joyce Wheater, had frequent arguments throughout their marriage, and after having three children – a twin brother and sister, Terry and Blanca, coming a few years after Judith – they divorced, and married other people. After those unions went wrong, they reconciled and remarried, and had a fourth child, the toddler Chip. The other three children are what Judith calls “the steps,” step-children from the other relationships. One of the girls is actually a half-sibling, fathered by Cliffe Wheater, but the other two are Joyce’s step-children, not related to the Wheaters by blood, but part of the family just the same.

Throughout the book, Judith’s primary goal is to keep all seven children together. This is easier to do if Cliffe and Joyce Wheater remain together, even if they themselves are on a perpetual honeymoon and leave most of the childcare to the governess, the nurse, and Judith. But their relationship has always been volatile, and they both have wandering eyes. Moreover, they’re rich enough to live in hotels and send their children away on a cruise with their paid caretakers. In many ways, the Wheater parents are less mature than the Wheater children, and certainly less mature than their daughter Judith.

Martin Boyne was friendly with Joyce Wheater in their youth, and was also acquainted with Cliffe Wheater in college. These loose, long-ago connections, combined with Judith’s singular personality and Boyne’s genuine sympathy for the children’s situation, cause Boyne to befriend Judith and all the children, and to become their supporter and ally in their attempts to remain together. I should add that Boyne is not the only adult who comes to believe that Judith’s view is the most beneficial for the other children; we soon find that Miss Scope and the nurse also take their directions from Judith without hesitation.

It is not surprising that Martin Boyne develops romantic feelings for Judith Wheater, as she has strength, wisdom, and determination far beyond her fifteen years. Wharton has created a very appealing character in Judith, and I found myself drawn to her, hoping she’d succeed in keeping all the children together. Boyne’s feelings for Judith are complicated: he does sometimes see her as the child she still is, and even when his fiancée says she believes he’s in love with Judith, he dismisses the idea, and insists that “Judith’s as much a child to me as the others.” But she isn’t really, because she’s made herself responsible for the rest of them, and if Boyne is to help the children, he must confer with Judith about every change in the family’s situation -- and that is what he does.

Wharton develops the relationship between Boyne and Judith with delicacy and great skill. For a long time, Boyne seems truly not to realize that his feelings are changing, and never seeks to take advantage of Judith in any way. For her part, Judith likes Boyne a great deal, but although she calls him “dear” and “darling” multiple times (which I figured must be common for that time period, their class, and their usual society), it never occurs to her that his feelings for her are anything but friendly and paternal. She may often behave like a woman, but Wharton reminds us in many small ways that Judith isn’t a grown-up yet. Part of what draws Boyne to Judith, and to all the children, is the way they make him feel younger. Unlike the Wheaters and their set, and unlike his fiancée, Rose, Boyne has never been married. He is middle-aged, but not yet old; the sense of adventure and possibility is palpable when he’s with the Wheater children.

A few lines that stood out for me, that I really liked… The step-siblings new step-mother comes to see the Wheater children and hopes to take those two children back to their biological father. She says Judith seems to forget that the other children have parents. Judith replies, “’No. It’s the parents who’ve forgotten.’” When Boyne goes to visit Rose, to let her know what has happened with the children, and to determine their own future, Wharton describes his feeling, “He had been to the country from which travelers return with another soul.” During one of the rare evenings when Boyne is not with the children or Rose, Wharton writes, “[H]e was suddenly aware of an intense unexpected satisfaction in being for once alone, his own master, with no one that he need be on his guard against or at his best before; no one to be tormented or enchanted by, no one to listen to and answer.”

The Children is not quite on the same level as some of Wharton’s more famous works, but the story held my interest, the characters were well-drawn and most were sympathetic, and the writing is great, as we’ve come to expect from Edith Wharton. I feel as though I too met the Wheater children, and had a very enjoyable time with them.

Recently traveling, currently reading

2010-01-16T22:14:00.002-06:00

It may seem that I became quiet all of the sudden, but really I've been busy. A week ago, I flew to Washington, DC, for the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. I had a poster accepted for a poster session, and was able to get approval to travel. The meeting was better than I expected, but DC in January was also much as I expected: too damn cold! There was some sun, yes, but the wind could be biting at times.

One neat thing was that my hotel was in Dupont Circle, and I visited both the bookstore and cafe areas of Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe (on different occasions, and DID NOT buy any books at Kramer's), and had a good time browsing in Second Story Books, where I confess I DID buy two used books. They were having a 20% off sale, so each of my five dollar books was only four dollars. One of them was a hardcover of Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath, which I'd borrowed from the library and read more than once in my youth, and am thrilled to have found at such a great price.

On my flight to DC last Saturday, I started reading The Children by Edith Wharton, as I'm scheduled to do a post for The Classics Circuit at the end of this month. I read four or five chapters on the plane, and enjoyed getting into the story. Then, I ended up not reading any more of it during my trip -- nor did I continue Vanity Fair on my iPod Touch, nor begin my next audiobook. The conference was good, but it took a lot out of me; I was getting to bed too late, and then rising early to attend sessions. I never had a long enough down time to focus on reading.

On the flight home, Edith was my companion once again, and I was glad to have her. (My other companion, the guy in the seat next to me, had an Amazon Kindle, and yes I asked him about it, and yes he told me how much he loves it. That was my first time seeing one in real life. Not bad!) I read some more before bed, and found it hard to put down, and even (I hate to admit it) skipped ahead to glance at the ending. I read some more on Friday evening, and plan to get ready for bed soon and read at least half an hour more before sleep. I am off work Monday, and looking forward to some extra reading time.

Today I got some overdue housecleaning done, kitchen and bathroom that badly needed my attention, and started a new audiobook: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Although my copy of the book is part of a "three-novels-in-one" edition, I think it will be fair to count this one for my RYOB Challenge. I'm already into the third hour of the audio, and I love it. I'll probably need to do some dusting tomorrow or Monday, so should be able to get through more of that this weekend as well as the Edith Wharton. Vanity Fair has not been abandoned, but merely set aside for now; I'll pick it up again after my post for The Classics Circuit is done.

It feels good to get back to my reading. Now I just need to get back on the treadmill! Thank heavens for three-day weekends.

RYOB Challenge 2010, or, Shopping in my own shelves

2010-01-06T09:20:00.003-06:00

It's only in the past few months that I've started thinking about reading challenges. I know there are challenge groups on LibraryThing, of course, and I've been a member of the 50 Book Challenge for 2008 and 2009 (mainly to have a single place to track my reading, not really expecting to make 50 books...and that's okay). But after I started following book bloggers on Twitter, got a glimpse of how many book blogs there are, and heard about all these challenges, I began to wonder which of them might be a good fit for me. The one I've chosen: the RYOB Challenge, which encourages you to Read Your Own Books. (RYOB is one of several challenges hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading -- thanks for the extra motivation, MizB!)

For years now, I've been acquiring books much faster than I can read them. I love used book stores, the annual Friends of the Library sale is one of my favorite days of the year, I'm a sucker for a bargain, and I just love books -- looking at them, having them around, dusting the shelves they rest upon, and of course reading them with whatever time I can manage. But I'm at the point where I might have -- MAYBE -- too many books, or at least, too many books that I haven't read yet. At this moment, my LibraryThing collection called "Your Library" (books I currently own) contains 868 books, of which 413 are tagged "tbr," meaning "to be read." That's a lot of books, already in my house, patiently waiting for my time and attention! Clearly, participating in the RYOB Challenge makes a great deal of sense for me.

The rules are simple: decide on a number of books you'd like to read in a given year, and choose those books from your own collection. The guidelines state that e-books and audiobooks are allowed (which makes me so happy, as audio allows me to turn housecleaning time and summer walks into reading time). Re-reads are not allowed, because those don't affect your TBR Mountain. Books must be read between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2010. I was initially thinking I'd choose 25 books, but I've decided to be a bit more ambitious and aim for 30.

One final note: I came up with the idea of "Shopping in my own shelves" when I was at Hastings some weeks ago. I think anyone who loves books and reading can relate to browsing at a bookstore, and getting that warm and fuzzy feeling as one encounters books one already owns, and/or has previously read and enjoyed. That day at Hastings, my eyes seemed to be drawn more to books I already "knew" than to potential new acquaintances and acquisitions. I thought, "I should just try shopping in my own shelves when I get the urge to browse." Imagine, a whole crowd of warm and fuzzy feelings as I peruse my collection, and decide which one to spend time with! (I realize it sounds like dating. What can I say, it's book love.)

With Jeff still out of work and his severance ended, shopping in my shelves could be my pastime for months to come, by necessity. Participating in the RYOB Challenge will make it more fun, and add to a feeling of accomplishment as I whittle away at my TBR total.

100 Mile Fitness Challenge 2: Jan.--Mar. 2010

2010-01-01T19:40:00.001-06:00

A blogger named Trish (of Trish's Reading Nook) is leading the 100 Mile Fitness Challenge, in which participants try to walk or run 100 miles during a three-month period -- specifically, January 1 through March 31, 2010. You can substitute other exercise as well, as long as it falls within the guidelines. Fifteen minutes of another kind of exercise counts as one mile. I learned about this challenge in early October, but just didn't get my act together to participate. By posting here, and then linking over to the main challenge page, hopefully I'll be motivated to stick with what I've started.

Although Trish is leading the challenge, she writes in the 100 Mile Fitness blog that she did not make up the challenge, but isn't sure where it originated. But she gets the credit for setting up the blog and bringing the challenge to book bloggers. So, I also want to acknowledge Rebecca, who blogs at Lost in Books, because I'm pretty sure that's where I first read about this challenge.

I walked on the treadmill today, knowing that I was starting the challenge, and completed three and a half miles. However, I just reviewed the rules this evening and found that partial miles aren't allowed. Darn it, I should have just stopped at three! But even if that distance doesn't count for the challenge, I was still burning calories, which is more important in the long run.

My plan to complete this challenge is to watch lots of TV on DVD while spending quality time with the cool treadmill we bought last summer. I started watching one of my Christmas presents today: the first two episodes of the first season of Pushing Daisies. (That's probably my favorite gift that I didn't already know I was getting. Three of my presents were things I bought/ordered myself, then told Jeff to give me for Xmas: two books, one CD. I'm easy to shop for, see?!?) This afternoon, I bought season three of Friday Night Lights on sale at Best Buy. I am SO EXCITED that season four of FNL will be starting on NBC before too long! (Note to self: find out NBC premiere date ASAP!)

Finally, we also got a couple Wii games for Christmas that should help me: Wii Fit Plus, and a Jillian Michaels game. I weighed myself with Wii Fit Plus today before I started on the treadmill, and plan to track my weight as I go along. I was happily surprised to find I'd only gained three pounds since whenever I did my last weigh-in (easily at least two months ago, possibly much longer). I figured it would be worse, like eight or ten pounds, so I can handle three. ;-)

Hopefully I'll get my next post up, about my 2010 reading challenge, before the end of the weekend. After being pretty quiet this fall, I've been feeling energized to get things written! And it feels good.

2009 reading wrap-up: how did I do?

2009-12-31T15:20:00.002-06:00

At the end of 2008, I posted some general thoughts about what I hoped to read during 2009. Looking back at the books I listed, I did read Atonement by Ian McEwan, my short story collection by Chekhov, Crime and Punishment, and The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity by Kim Chernin. I'm also about a third of the way through Vanity Fair, which I've unfortunately "stalled out" with in the past week or so. I won't finish it in 2009, but I haven't abandoned it, either; just taking a break to read some poetry, and hoping to get back to it in the next few weeks. My short list of "other novels that are in my sights" are all still in my sights and never got into my hands to read. Makes me a little sad, but I'm trying to think of them as Worlds Still To Be Explored, which sounds pretty cool, right? ;-)

So what DID I read in 2009? I read (or listened to) 42 books, having just finished my new Billy Collins book. Here's the whole list (edited to add ** by my favorites):

1. Atonement -- Ian McEwan **
2. Lady with Lapdog and Other Stories -- Anton Chekhov
3. So Many Books, So Little Time -- Sara Nelson
4. Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky **
5. Dead Souls -- Nikolai Gogol
6. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee **
7. The Leopard -- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
8. Duplicate Keys -- Jane Smiley **
9. Intruder in the Dust -- William Faulkner
10. Corsons Inlet -- A. R. Ammons
11. At Paradise Gate -- Jane Smiley
12. The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity -- Kim Chernin
13. Evidence -- Mary Oliver **
14. A Book Addict's Treasury -- edited by Lynda Murphy & Julie Rugg
15. Lucy Gayheart -- Willa Cather
16. Out Stealing Horses -- Per Petterson
17. The Browser's Ecstasy: a Meditation on Reading -- Geoffrey O'Brien
18. Miss Julie -- August Strindberg
19. Questions about Angels -- Billy Collins
20. The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins **
21. Bleak House -- Charles Dickens **
22. Eva Cassidy, Songbird -- Rob Burley & Jonathan Maitland
23. I am the Messenger -- Markus Zusak
24. Life of Pi -- Yann Martel
25. God's Silence -- Franz Wright
26. Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behavior -- Jon Elster
27. Daphne -- Justine Picardie **
28. Walking to Martha's Vineyard -- Franz Wright **
29. Beach Music -- Pat Conroy
30. Florida -- Christine Schutt **
31. The Progress of Julius -- Daphne du Maurier
32. Tiny Alice -- Edward Albee
33. Pere Goriot -- Honore de Balzac
34. All Souls -- Christine Schutt
35. Feed -- M. T. Anderson
36. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters -- Scott Rosenberg **
37. Austenland -- Shannon Hale ** (guilty pleasure!)
38. The Namesake -- Jhumpa Lahiri
39. Man Walks into a Room -- Nicole Krauss
40. The White Tiger -- Aravind Adiga
41. Native Guard -- Natasha Trethewey **
42. Ballistics -- Billy Collins

Hopefully I'll have a chance over New Year's weekend to post about some reading plans for 2010, probably with fewer specific titles in it than last year's plan. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot before I even get started!