What Happened to June?

I’m sorry, I had a sick kid and a death in the family (not the kid, luckily, but a dear older man who was a great reader and all-round good guy, RIP JB). Also I took on some new responsibilities at work which have added up to more hours than I planned for. It’s okay, I’m still here and everyone is fine now. Tomorrow I’ll post about The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg, and follow that shortly with Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. I loved both of these books. I’m also nearly finished Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. Both Attenberg and Walter are new writers to me so I’m looking forward to reading more by both of them.

I’ve also embarked on something called The Infinite Summer Jam, a Facebook group populated (mostly) by librarians who are attempting to spend the summer reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I decided to try this, knowing that I would never have the patience or motivation to read this book any other way. Since no chapter seems (as of yet) to relate to any previous chapter, it’s been a good book for reading in bits and pieces. I am liking it more than I expected, which is to say, I expected to hate it, and do not.

Alternate Forms of Fiction Delivery

I stopped watching television in the early 1990’s, along about the time I started having babies and got sorta busy. As I recall, there wasn’t much good on then anyway. And what with having to watch shows at the time they were broadcast (or remember to set up the VCR), TV didn’t get much attention from me for years. Occasionally a family member would cajole me into trying something on DVD and I’d get hooked (Alias, Lost, Arrested Development) or I would watch a few things (Game of Thrones) as they were broadcast, but mostly I was TV-indifferent, if not TV-hostile.

I’ve been aware for several years now, however, that I’ve been missing out on something. Everyone I know (indeed, people whose opinions I respect!) has something they are addicted to on Netflix, and I keep hearing about the “quality of the writing,” a phrase which causes me to lift my nose up out of my book and look around a little. Therefore in recent months I’ve been dipping my toe into the Netflix waters slowly. I’ve started with season 1 of Madmen and the first season of the Dr. Who revival (the ninth doctor, Christopher Eccleston) and am very happy. It finally occurred to me that I can just think of TV shows as good fiction, in another format. That idea was all I needed to forge ahead.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a TV blog. There are tons of those out there and I am so embarrassingly far behind the curve I couldn’t possibly offer anything useful. I might mention things occasionally, as they relate to books I’m reading, but that’s it. I just wanted to share my excitement at discovering something new, even if I am ten years late to the party.

Big Heavy Books

I just about gave myself a nosebleed last night with A Dance with Dragons. At 1,040 pages in hardback, I can barely lift the book with one hand, let alone hold it up to read it in bed. What's a girl to do? Start another book for bedtime reading: Wolf Hall. Wait, that one is 560 pages. Ouch. I need to start working out with weights to keep up with my reading.

Since I am about to leave for a trip to Tucson to see my sister and her new baby, I ordered Wolf Hall on the Kindle. I've been using the Kindle a lot recently to read first chapters of books I'm considering. So far I've tried and rejected several, including the new Eric Larson book In the Garden of Beasts which I didn't like any better than I liked Devil in the White City (which is to say, not at all).

I like the feeling of security that I get from the Kindle. If I have that with me, I am never without a book because if I finish (or don't like) one I can always get another! (That's assuming I have wi-fi and a functioning credit card.) Now I no longer have to travel with books and backup books, though I still obsess about what to take on each trip.

Here is a gratuitous shot of my lovely sister and beautiful nephew, just to break up the boredom. It's my blog; I'm allowed to do this.

Emily and Seth, July, 2011

Blog Redesign Coming!

I am not much on redecorating. Or really decorating at all; I think there is nothing wrong with teeteringly tall stacks of books on bedside tables and baskets of half-worked knitting projects in every corner. Family members agree; their favorite accessories run to USB cords and piles of magazines, and we've recently installed a phone museum in our kitchen that consists of broken cell phones, artfully arranged. It's on the side counter, if you are interested in visiting it.

Nevertheless, one must stay current. And in the blog world, at least, you can hire someone to do the freshening up for you. So stay tuned for a new look. I hope you like it!

ETA: It's here! Is the text too small? Let me know if you think it is.

My Mother Also Read a Book a Week

The question keeps popping up: How do you read a book a week? I've answered it before (I don't watch TV, I don't play golf, etc.) but I've thought of another factor and thought I'd write about it today, on Mother's Day. The other factor is just habit and example. My mother read a book a week. Trips to the library were built into our weekly routine, like trips to the grocery store. Her mother read a book a week, and my other grandmother read a book a week too. Her daughters, my aunts, do too. My stepmother and sister read that much as well. It's just something that mothers and daughters do in our family. I know my friend Anne and her sister Julia read a book a week also, a habit they got from their mother. In these families books are like food. You wouldn't let the cupboard get empty and you wouldn't be without a book (and a backup book) either.

I am thankful that my mother set this example, though I'm sure she didn't think of it that way. On this Mother's Day I want to remember all the departed mothers in my life: my mother Patricia, her mother Marie, and my father's mother Virginia, great readers all.

Symbolic Action

Today I came across an article about Canadian artist Barb Hunt whose art installation called antipersonnel consists of tiny knitted replicas of landmines. The current installation consists of 75 different kinds of mines; Hunt’s goal is to eventually knit a replica of all 300 types. An important theme in A Short History of Women is the issue of the first Dorothy’s hunger strike for women’s sufferage; is it brave, is it selfish, is it futile? The second Dorothy’s actions (taking photographs, getting arrested) are less drastic but nevertheless have meaning to her. Can Barb Hunt’s idiosyncratic combination of medium and message make a difference? Do symbolic actions work? Remember that in less enlightened times, symbolic actions were often the only actions available to women.

Today I made a donation to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Here are two reasons I support this organization (from the ICBL web site):

The human costs: Antipersonnel landmines still maim and kill ordinary people every day. They blow off their victims' legs, feet, toes and hands. They fire shrapnel into their faces and bodies. They kill.

Civilians bear the brunt. The vast majority of victims are civilians and not soldiers. Year after year, Landmine Monitor has reported that civilians account for 70 to 85 percent of casualties. This is not just during a conflict – most of the countries where casualties are reported are at peace.

I urge you to investigate The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and support their activities. By doing so (and by making a donation) I prove that symbolic actions can make a difference.

Why Procrastinate Now When You Can Just Do It Later?

In January 2008 we bought a new refrigerator. We replaced our 1992 white side-by-side fridge with an energy-efficient stainless steel freezer-on-the-bottom model. The old fridge (in addition to unpredictably leaking water onto the floor) functioned as a family bulletin board where we hung important papers, photos, relevant Zits cartoons, etc. from magnets. The morning that the new refrigerator was being delivered (and the old fridge taken away) I hastily removed all these things and shoved them, along with all the magnets, into a brown paper bag. I would hang them all back up once the new fridge was installed. But whoa, who knew? It turns out you can’t stick a magnet to stainless steel fridge doors. So I put the paper bag in a corner of my laundry room to “sort out later.” Guess what I did yesterday? Yes, after almost exactly two years, I finally got around to sorting the contents of that bag. Want some expired pizza coupons from the now-closed Gumby’s on University Avenue? How about the signed permission slip for the 8th grade field trip (I wonder what happened with THAT?)

I relay this embarrassing story only to illustrate my innate tendency to procrastinate. Hence you won’t be surprised to hear that I have four blog posts to write about the last four books of 2009 and another to write about the first book of 2010. Then I really ought to do some kind of end-of-year wrap-up post, but that idea too just makes me yawn.

If you’re lucky, none of this will take me two years.

Vacation (reading)

I'm having a little vacation at my father's house near the beach. It's nice to hang out with my dad and his dogs, and in a few minutes I'm going to take a walk on the sea wall. The weather is warm-ish and sunny and the tide is coming in. It's been a good short break from my job (not very stressful) and my teenagers (don't ask). I go home tomorrow.

I've read two books since I've been here and have started a third. I don't usually distinguish between vacation reading and regular reading but I seem to have done so for this trip. My airplane reading was A Long Finish by Michael Dibdin, an author I've always wanted to try but have never gotten around to. My laying-around-the-house reading has been Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner, a book I would normally NEVER read due to its embarrassing title and even more embarrassing cover art. But my father's wife liked it and promised I would too, and it turns out to be entertaining. For the trip home I've got Arctic Chill, another Icelandic mystery from Arnaldur Indridason.

Catch you on the flip side.

Help from a Stranger

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I left a library book (Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay) in the airline seat pocket on a flight from Madison, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. A few days ago I went to the library, armed with my checkbook, to pay for this lost volume. When the library clerk pulled up my record she discovered that the book had been returned! I don't know if thanks are due to someone who works at Northwest Airlines, or to a good Samaritan passenger (maybe someone en route home to Madison?) who found my book and returned it to the Madison Public Library, but whoever did it, I am very grateful. Thanks for saving me the cost of a hardback and for making this book available for others to read. What a nice feeling it was to discover this!

Pretend There's a Picture of a Cat

It's well known in certain corners of the blogosphere that when bloggers have nothing to say, they post pictures of their cats. Well, I have no cats, but if I did, now would be the time I would show them to you. Another staple of content-light blogging is food pictures. I guess I could show you the hard boiled eggs I made today but you probably already know what those look like.

Wondering how the reading is going? Still working on that Swedish mystery. Ditto for the Sophie Kinsella. Next week I should be able to write about both of them.

Have a nice weekend!

15 Magazines a Weekend

Sorry I disappeared. I went on a little vacation to visit some family in Philadelphia. Unlike in my house where I am outnumbered by men, in this house the women rule. The supply of magazines and chocolate far exceeds what I am used to, and I had a little trouble controlling myself. I read no books, but I did read several back issues of InStyle, Martha Stewart Living, Romantic Homes, and a magazine called Lucky, which I couldn’t figure out at all.

We went to see the movie The Other Boleyn Girl, which we enjoyed, and then keeping with the 16^th century theme also watched four episodes of The Tudors, the recent Showtime production about Henry VIII starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The Other Boleyn Girl (based on the book by Philippa Gregory) stars Eric Bana as Henry VIII. I can’t decide which Henry I prefer: Rhys Meyers captures Henry’s intelligence well but while good looking, seems too small for the part. Bana looks suitably bear-like but the writers didn’t give him a chance to seem very smart. I have read only one of Gregory’s books in her series about the Tudors (The Queen’s Fool), but I didn’t like it well enough to read any of the others. Thus I can’t comment on whether The Other Boleyn Girl was a good adaptation, but it’s an entertaining movie and despite the racy ads is perfectly safe for young teens if you have any who want to go.

The weather in Philadelphia was in the high 40’s Fahrenheit. This is a huge contrast to the months of below zero weather we’ve had in Wisconsin, with roads covered in ice, and more than 80 inches of snow. Getting around was so uncomplicated! And I could wear normal shoes. We went to the Philadelphia Flower Show, which is a tradition in our family among the women, anyway. Women were the majority of show attendees, I noticed, and the convention center did a smart thing: it converted several men’s rest rooms into women’s rooms. I thought the show itself was a bit underwhelming. Has the exhibit space shrunk in favor of space for vendors? It seemed like it. I did buy some clever pulley things that let you raise and lower your hanging flower baskets for easier watering. I had seen them a while ago on a British gardening Web site and had searched everywhere for them here, to no avail. A nice English vendor had them for $16 each and after I bought them, he said "thanks luv."

On the plane home I finished The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I will write more about that soon. It wasn’t a good choice for the plane because I kept crying, which as you can imagine, is awkward and embarrassing. I had to skim some parts near the end because I knew that if I read them with my full attention I might sob aloud, which would certainly discomfit my fellow passengers. Now I need to go back and re-read those sections when I’m home alone and can cry in peace.