I did not expect to like Dreamers of the Day; from the sleeve it sounded too historical and political for me. But what a talented writer. Mary Doria Russell made this story so alive, I could hardly put it down. Agnes' personal story laid over the cultural portrait of the early 1900s was completely engaging and it kept getting better through the events of the decades. It was thorough and intelligent. I love this book!
Page 21: Well, I cannot make poetry of our great trial, as Mr. Owen did of combat, but permit me to act the school teacher and explain to you the workings of the lungs.
Page 48: There we discovered that some confidence trick of climate and current had delivered us into a full and bracing spring.
Page 55: In contrast to the mute and shrouded hordes of Cairo's women, the city's men yelled constantly.
Page 125: Of them, I recall only the passage from sun glare to near blindness in the shadowed stony chill inside and the disorientation I felt until my eyes adjusted enough to discern exotic artwork in sputtering candlelight.
Page 165: The Israelites fleeing Pharaoh required forty years for that which our train accomplished in a matter of hours.
Page 176: And there at last was the Mount of Olives, glorified by the lingering brilliance of a golden sunset, its own purple shadows veiling hills that rose and retreated, height upon blue height.
Page 211: Add water, and the soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book.
Page 244: Observing human history has turned out to be a terrible exercise in monotony.
Love it. Merry Christmas!
Friday, December 20, 2013
Friday, November 29, 2013
Seating Arrangements
Maggie Shipstead is a smooth and artful writer. Her entertaining debut novel, Seating Arrangements, had me transfixed. It begins in the father-of-the bride's voice and ends in his voice, but throughout the weekend of the wedding we get to be inside most of the characters' heads.
page 12: Makeup pencils and brushes were everywhere, abandoned helter-skelter as though by the fleeing beauticians of Pompeii.
page 38: The few times both sets of parents came together for dinners in Cambridge they had all bravely skated the hours away on a thin crust of chitchat.
page 93: Silence over stockings -- the first regret of his marriage.
page 113: Love was just one more thing that would make it difficult to die.
page 183: Female friendship was one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths cleanup. Livia would do what she wanted. The sad-girl hormones would bind her to another man who didn't want her, and when Sterling sloughed her off, Dominique would be called upon to indulge her defense mechanisms, tell her that of course there was some complilcated reason he would not allow himself to open up to her, of course he knew she was too good for him (no man ever thought that -- it went against natural selection), of course he was afraid of getting hurt.
page 12: Makeup pencils and brushes were everywhere, abandoned helter-skelter as though by the fleeing beauticians of Pompeii.
page 38: The few times both sets of parents came together for dinners in Cambridge they had all bravely skated the hours away on a thin crust of chitchat.
page 93: Silence over stockings -- the first regret of his marriage.
page 113: Love was just one more thing that would make it difficult to die.
page 183: Female friendship was one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths cleanup. Livia would do what she wanted. The sad-girl hormones would bind her to another man who didn't want her, and when Sterling sloughed her off, Dominique would be called upon to indulge her defense mechanisms, tell her that of course there was some complilcated reason he would not allow himself to open up to her, of course he knew she was too good for him (no man ever thought that -- it went against natural selection), of course he was afraid of getting hurt.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Although I've not been subbing much this month - too busy painting the new addition and doing remodel errands - I did manage to finish Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Wonderful story, wonderfully told. It's told in two different voices, which I make note of with my font, just as Barbery does in the book. And then there were the whole chapters that I wanted to include here, beautiful. Several had tears rolling down my face.
Page 90: We have never had our tea together in the morning, and this break with our usual protocol imbues the ritual with a strange flavor.
Page 91: At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasure will be all the greater for our having violated one of its principles.
Page 106: Ah, sweet, impromptu moment, lifting the veil of melancholy... In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured.
Page 108: The death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias.
Page 119: We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next.
Page 128: We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters, to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying.
Page 143: Madame Michel has the elegance of a hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.
Page 162: There is one chocolate Florentine left, which I nibble out of greediness, with my front teeth, like a mouse. If you change the way you crunch into something, it is like trying something new.
Page 247: I have always been fascinated by the abnegation with which we human beings are capable of devoting a great deal of energy to the quest for nothing and to rehashing of useless and absurd ideas.
Page 250: Eternity: for all its invisibility, we gaze at it.
Page 279: Melancholy overwhelms me, at supersonic speed.
I also read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, by J.K. Rowling. Just keeping my Spanish up.
There was one quote I kept.
Page 21: -- Sí, sí es todo muy triste, pero domínate, Hagrid, o van a descubrirnos -- susurró la profesora McGonagall... (my translation: "Yes, yes it's all very sad, but control yourself, Hagrid, or they will discover us," whispered Professor McGonagall.)
It's the domínate that I like, which means control yourself. Dominate yourself? Made me smile.
Page 90: We have never had our tea together in the morning, and this break with our usual protocol imbues the ritual with a strange flavor.
Page 91: At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasure will be all the greater for our having violated one of its principles.
Page 106: Ah, sweet, impromptu moment, lifting the veil of melancholy... In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured.
Page 108: The death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias.
Page 119: We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next.
Page 128: We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters, to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying.
Page 143: Madame Michel has the elegance of a hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.
Page 162: There is one chocolate Florentine left, which I nibble out of greediness, with my front teeth, like a mouse. If you change the way you crunch into something, it is like trying something new.
Page 247: I have always been fascinated by the abnegation with which we human beings are capable of devoting a great deal of energy to the quest for nothing and to rehashing of useless and absurd ideas.
Page 250: Eternity: for all its invisibility, we gaze at it.
Page 279: Melancholy overwhelms me, at supersonic speed.
I also read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, by J.K. Rowling. Just keeping my Spanish up.
There was one quote I kept.
Page 21: -- Sí, sí es todo muy triste, pero domínate, Hagrid, o van a descubrirnos -- susurró la profesora McGonagall... (my translation: "Yes, yes it's all very sad, but control yourself, Hagrid, or they will discover us," whispered Professor McGonagall.)
It's the domínate that I like, which means control yourself. Dominate yourself? Made me smile.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
What an enjoyable read! I definitely recommend Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It was full of imagination and characters transcending their tragedies with creativity and love. My MIL loaned it to me and I wanted to read it in September since 9/11 is central to its plotline. I found lots of quotes that I love, but I also liked what I couldn't quote about this story - the way it was interwoven.
Page 2: I desperately wish I had my tambourine with me now, because even after everything I'm still wearing heavy boots, and sometimes it helps to play a good beat.
Page 33: The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am...
Page 74: I woke up once in the middle of the night, and Buckminster's paws were on my eyelids. He must have been feeling my nightmares.
Page 108: ... songs are as sad as the listener...
Page 126: ... maybe great books were coiled within him like springs, books that could have separated inside from outside.
Page 224: Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on.
Page 209: The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.
Page 2: I desperately wish I had my tambourine with me now, because even after everything I'm still wearing heavy boots, and sometimes it helps to play a good beat.
Page 33: The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am...
Page 74: I woke up once in the middle of the night, and Buckminster's paws were on my eyelids. He must have been feeling my nightmares.
Page 108: ... songs are as sad as the listener...
Page 126: ... maybe great books were coiled within him like springs, books that could have separated inside from outside.
Page 224: Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on.
Page 209: The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Mari's Books of August
I wanted to read a classic to my kids this summer, so I chose William Golding's Lord of the Flies. I think they expect something slow and dry, even if the story is good, when they hear "classic." But with such a weird and wicked story, they were certainly captivated. We stayed up quite late a couple of August nights and finished it quickly.
Page 137: The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life.
Some time ago I had picked up a little book at our local library's overstock sale, Sinister Sudoku by Kaye Morgan. Both my mom and my MIL like to do sudoku. I thought I'd pass it along to one of them after I read it. Story was fine but it's not a book I need to keep.
And since then I have not been reading much. Busy getting ready for school, our family trip to Silverwood, getting our exchage student enrolled and ready. I subbed a six day assignment, starting the second day of school. I thought I'd get lots of reading in with lunches and prep periods, but I found that I actually had to do lots of prep. It wasn't until the last day or two that I read anything. I do like the book I'm currently reading. It's a good September book.
Always carry a book. *smile*
Page 137: The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life.
Some time ago I had picked up a little book at our local library's overstock sale, Sinister Sudoku by Kaye Morgan. Both my mom and my MIL like to do sudoku. I thought I'd pass it along to one of them after I read it. Story was fine but it's not a book I need to keep.
And since then I have not been reading much. Busy getting ready for school, our family trip to Silverwood, getting our exchage student enrolled and ready. I subbed a six day assignment, starting the second day of school. I thought I'd get lots of reading in with lunches and prep periods, but I found that I actually had to do lots of prep. It wasn't until the last day or two that I read anything. I do like the book I'm currently reading. It's a good September book.
Always carry a book. *smile*
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Pacific Northwest Plein Air - last year
The Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia River Gorge is happening this Labor Day weekend. It is primarily painting, which is judged and accoladed, but there's a small (growing) writing portion. Last year was my first year participating in the writing.
I had published Eyes-Closed Tree inspired by The Gorge White House. You can read it here. Blush of Skin, my other piece, was inspired by Hood River's Waterfront Park and can be read here.
Each day for five days there is a location assigned, somewhere in or around Hood River Oregon. At the end the writer submits two pieces to be included in the online anthology. One of these will be displayed in the Plein Air exhibit at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River during the month of September. Opening reception this year will be on Friday 6th, 6 - 8pm. Attendees can vote for a favorite painting; the writing is not juried.
This year I am busy, with working, kids in middle and high school and all their after school activities, hosting an exchange student, co-chairing the school music boosters and being on the executive team at my church, oh almost forgot the steering committee of the Underwood Community Garden. Against all reason I'm going to do Plein Air again this year. The quickness of it is intimidating but it's a good exercise for me. And it's fun!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
My July 2013 Reads
Still catching up with books and quotes... I finished reading The Amber Spyglass to the kids in July. This is the second of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. Love this series.
Page 141: Either Mrs. Coulter did not know the boil of feelings that her simple words had lanced, or she was monstrously clever.Ann Patchet's The Magician's Assistant was a pleasure. (Although I loved Patchet's Bel Canto more and recommend it emphatically.) I just saw a magician last weekend when my family and I visited Silverwood. He was pretty decent, even. After reading this book I have more respect for magicians and the level of commitment they have to have to their craft. All the practice. I loved the juxtaposition of the beautiful and polished Sabine from California and the rough and gravelly family in the Midwest.
Page 8: She took no stock in dreams. To her they were just a television left on in another room.
Page 106: It was the moment neither of them knew what would happen.
Page 121: When Parsifal died she lost the rest of his life, but now she had stumbled on eighteen years. Eighteen untouched years that she could have; early, forgotten volumes of her favorite work.
Page 174: Now she understood why he had lied to her, and how it was less a lie, the complete burial of an unmentionable truth.
My daughter borrowed The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chlosky from the library. She had seen the trailers for the movie that was based on the book. She finished it in a day and told me I should read it. So I did. I could hardly put it down either, I got so invested in this kid's experience. I didn't take any quotes and I'm not sure if it just didn't have one-liners or if I was too busy reading.
And that was July.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
What Was May; What Was June
Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates lasted through many lunch breaks and prep periods at school in May. Story told wonderfully.
Page 171: In the shivery water windblown clouds were reflected like fleeting thoughts.
Page 235: Insomnia is a shattering of the brain. Glittering puddles like slivers of broken glass in vast mudflats to the horizon.
Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter was shorter but no less captivating. I found the book at the library's overstock book sale.
Page 109: "Adele has the schoolteacher's low opinion of everybody," said Miss Tennyson. (The truism of that quote made me laugh!)
Page 128: In the poorly lit park, the bandstand and the Confederate statue stood in dim aureoles of rain, looking ghosts they were, and somehow married to eachother, by this time.
Page 160: For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.
May for me ended with The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick. I am lucky to consider myself a friend of Jane's. She is a wonderful writer and generous of heart. I've read many of her books and always feel enriched, learning life lessons alongside the protagonist.
Page 101: He disappeared the way a rock sinks to the bottom in a murky pond; one can't see it even though it's there.
Page 183: Snow fell like melting tears.
Look at that, two daughter stories in the same month. My first manuscript is about a daughter as well. It tells the mother's history through the daughter's discovery of it, and in so doing we learn the daughter's story as well.
In June I only finished one book: The Republic of Love by Carol Shields. (Well it is a bit longish, she says defensively. Except that it's not.) The story builds slowly towards a union that you know is coming, yet it surprises you in its fulfillment. Satisfyingly so. I loved the descriptiveness of the moments and the mermaids that she studied and through which she viewed her world. So much was too contextual to quote just a line.
Page 353: It's coming at her, it's about to pounce. The emptiness flowing toward her like a cloud of gas.
Page 364: Love renewed is not precisely love redeemed.
I find that I am reading less during the summer. No prep periods, plus kids home and all. I have so many books I'm looking forward to reading. My MIL lent me a stack, my daughter gave me a couple and so did another friend.
Take some time to read tonight.
Page 171: In the shivery water windblown clouds were reflected like fleeting thoughts.
Page 235: Insomnia is a shattering of the brain. Glittering puddles like slivers of broken glass in vast mudflats to the horizon.
Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter was shorter but no less captivating. I found the book at the library's overstock book sale.
Page 109: "Adele has the schoolteacher's low opinion of everybody," said Miss Tennyson. (The truism of that quote made me laugh!)
Page 128: In the poorly lit park, the bandstand and the Confederate statue stood in dim aureoles of rain, looking ghosts they were, and somehow married to eachother, by this time.
Page 160: For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.
May for me ended with The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick. I am lucky to consider myself a friend of Jane's. She is a wonderful writer and generous of heart. I've read many of her books and always feel enriched, learning life lessons alongside the protagonist.
Page 101: He disappeared the way a rock sinks to the bottom in a murky pond; one can't see it even though it's there.
Page 183: Snow fell like melting tears.
Look at that, two daughter stories in the same month. My first manuscript is about a daughter as well. It tells the mother's history through the daughter's discovery of it, and in so doing we learn the daughter's story as well.
In June I only finished one book: The Republic of Love by Carol Shields. (Well it is a bit longish, she says defensively. Except that it's not.) The story builds slowly towards a union that you know is coming, yet it surprises you in its fulfillment. Satisfyingly so. I loved the descriptiveness of the moments and the mermaids that she studied and through which she viewed her world. So much was too contextual to quote just a line.
Page 353: It's coming at her, it's about to pounce. The emptiness flowing toward her like a cloud of gas.
Page 364: Love renewed is not precisely love redeemed.
I find that I am reading less during the summer. No prep periods, plus kids home and all. I have so many books I'm looking forward to reading. My MIL lent me a stack, my daughter gave me a couple and so did another friend.
Take some time to read tonight.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
2013 Begins
I'm finally getting close to being caught up!
If you read my last post, you know I had just read The Hunger Games to my kids in December 2012. So of course I read Catching Fire and The Mockingjay to them in January of 2013. Although my daughter had read them, my son had not. The kids made lots of time for evening reading for those books and even asked me to read while they cleaned their rooms during the day. Gotta love good stories.
I meanwhile read Halldor Laxness' Iceland's Bell. It was recommended to me by an author friend who knew I was writing a story set in Norway. What an incredible, thick and wandering story! I loved it for the bold, quirky and snarky characters, so flawed and so wonderful. I only kept one quote from page 18: ...her involuntary smile dwindled into a look of panic. But the writing was exquisite and I just didn't keep other quotes because they were so contextual. I would've had to quote several pages!
February I read another MIL book, Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Oh my, oh wow. The same story from two women's very different points of view. Excellent read.
Page 95: It is a peculiar sensation, as a woman with a very good job, to be pitied by men with tatoos and headaches.
Page 123: It isn't the strong sleepers that sleep around.
My daughter gave me Christine Harris' Undercover Girl. Then I read The Paris Wife, which a friend had given me for my birthday before I went to Europe and I just hadn't gotten to it yet. I was glad I'd waited as I could see Paris better. The first two quotes are Hemmingway speaking.
Page 127: "The waiting helps you boil it down."
Page 186: "You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through. You have to live it with your eyes, really."
Page 259: His silence was as much as an admission that he was in love with her, but somehow he'd turned it all back on me so that the affair wasn't the worst thing, but that I'd had the very bad taste to mention it.
I borrowed How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely from the library in March and was glad to find it less a "how-to" and more a fun, fast paced novel. I read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman to the kids. Love that book!
I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera, the English translation, and was so captivated by the story and the phrasing that one of these days I'll find a copy in Spanish to compare.
Page 7: ...an envelope... sealed with so much sealing wax that it had to be ripped to pieces to get the letter out.
Page 62: "Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can." (Florentino's mother, giving advice on love and the pain of passion.)
Page 69: ...his hair in an uproar of love...
Page 71: "Very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant."
Page 116: Then there was such a diaphanous silence that despite the disorder of the birds and the syllables of water on stone, one could hear the desolate breath of the sea.
Page 155: ...soggy with champagne...
Page 197: ...and left her to wander the limbo of abandoned brides.
Page 221: If anything vexed her, it was the perpetual chain of daily meals.
Page 224: ...she would wake to find her nightgown soaked by the endless tears of Petra Morales, who had died of love many years before in the same bed where she lay sleeping.
Page 234: ...growing fatter and rougher as he sank into the quicksand of an unfortunate old age.
Page 345: ...love was always love, any time and any place, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.
In April I read The Subtle Knife to the kids, the second in Pullman's Dark Materials series. I also plowed through Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as it'd been years since I'd read it. Fun to have my brief Paris visit to draw from. Also read two borrowed from my MIL: The Mozart Conspiracy by Scott Mariani and Anita Shreve's The Weight of Water. I've read a couple of Shreve's books before and am always transported.
Yesterday we picked up our Thai exchange daughter from the airport. I wonder if she'll have some books to recommend.
If you read my last post, you know I had just read The Hunger Games to my kids in December 2012. So of course I read Catching Fire and The Mockingjay to them in January of 2013. Although my daughter had read them, my son had not. The kids made lots of time for evening reading for those books and even asked me to read while they cleaned their rooms during the day. Gotta love good stories.
I meanwhile read Halldor Laxness' Iceland's Bell. It was recommended to me by an author friend who knew I was writing a story set in Norway. What an incredible, thick and wandering story! I loved it for the bold, quirky and snarky characters, so flawed and so wonderful. I only kept one quote from page 18: ...her involuntary smile dwindled into a look of panic. But the writing was exquisite and I just didn't keep other quotes because they were so contextual. I would've had to quote several pages!
February I read another MIL book, Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Oh my, oh wow. The same story from two women's very different points of view. Excellent read.
Page 95: It is a peculiar sensation, as a woman with a very good job, to be pitied by men with tatoos and headaches.
Page 123: It isn't the strong sleepers that sleep around.
My daughter gave me Christine Harris' Undercover Girl. Then I read The Paris Wife, which a friend had given me for my birthday before I went to Europe and I just hadn't gotten to it yet. I was glad I'd waited as I could see Paris better. The first two quotes are Hemmingway speaking.
Page 127: "The waiting helps you boil it down."
Page 186: "You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through. You have to live it with your eyes, really."
Page 259: His silence was as much as an admission that he was in love with her, but somehow he'd turned it all back on me so that the affair wasn't the worst thing, but that I'd had the very bad taste to mention it.
I borrowed How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely from the library in March and was glad to find it less a "how-to" and more a fun, fast paced novel. I read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman to the kids. Love that book!
I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera, the English translation, and was so captivated by the story and the phrasing that one of these days I'll find a copy in Spanish to compare.
Page 7: ...an envelope... sealed with so much sealing wax that it had to be ripped to pieces to get the letter out.
Page 62: "Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can." (Florentino's mother, giving advice on love and the pain of passion.)
Page 69: ...his hair in an uproar of love...
Page 71: "Very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant."
Page 116: Then there was such a diaphanous silence that despite the disorder of the birds and the syllables of water on stone, one could hear the desolate breath of the sea.
Page 155: ...soggy with champagne...
Page 197: ...and left her to wander the limbo of abandoned brides.
Page 221: If anything vexed her, it was the perpetual chain of daily meals.
Page 224: ...she would wake to find her nightgown soaked by the endless tears of Petra Morales, who had died of love many years before in the same bed where she lay sleeping.
Page 234: ...growing fatter and rougher as he sank into the quicksand of an unfortunate old age.
Page 345: ...love was always love, any time and any place, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.
In April I read The Subtle Knife to the kids, the second in Pullman's Dark Materials series. I also plowed through Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as it'd been years since I'd read it. Fun to have my brief Paris visit to draw from. Also read two borrowed from my MIL: The Mozart Conspiracy by Scott Mariani and Anita Shreve's The Weight of Water. I've read a couple of Shreve's books before and am always transported.
Yesterday we picked up our Thai exchange daughter from the airport. I wonder if she'll have some books to recommend.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
2012 - More Books and More Quotes
January: Indu Sundaresan's The Twentieth Wife and Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. Talk about two very different books. Both long, but Indu's beautiful story was based on actual people and was thick with historical information while Dan's techie thriller was a fast and fun read in present day.
Ah, I like all kinds.
By April I had long been planning our family trip to Europe. Knowing I would be in Paris, I read Baxter's lovely The Most Beautiful Walk in the World. I took a few notes, but no quotes. I also read The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick to the kids. I like to read those young adult fantasy books every once in awhile.
And then In May I read A. S. Byatt's Possession. Captivating. It does possess you.
page 21: She had enticed them in like an old witch.
page 97: "I make but a stammering companion, I have no graces."
page 99: "It might put a cat among the pigeons."
page 116: ... have heard the bloodless cries of the vanished and given them voice.
page 161: Lady Bailey changed the subject to hunting, which she discussed with Maude and her husband, leaving Roland to an inner ear full of verbal ghosts and rattle of his spoon.
page 185: - the only life I am sure of is the life of the imagination.
page 196: "Now I must discipline myself... or we are swallowed up, both of us, in frippery imaginations, and vain speculations."
page 508: How true it is that one needed to be seen by others to be sure of one's own existence.
During this time I also read Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's For Freedom - The Story of a French Spy to the kids. I'd gotten this from the library with the whole Europe trip in mind. Then in June it was The Secret of Castle Cant by K. P. Bath, also to the kids. My sister had given me The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen to return to our exchange sister in Germany (we would be staying with her much of the time there.) I decided to read it before returning it, and actually finished it there. Interesting story. What characters and description.
page 33: He was clutching Denise's umbrella in his fist without opening it, and still is seemed not his fault, that he was getting drenched.
page 146: Outside the weather was curdling.
page 158: And the posture of the older oak trees reaching toward this sky had a jut, a wildness and entitlement, predating permanent settlement; memories of an unfenced world were written in the cursive of their branches.
Our trip was for three weeks mid July through the first week of August. I had two guide books along, one about Paris and one about Germany. We flew in to Zurich and were met by my exchange sister and her son. Their home outside of Frieburg became our home base. My kids attended a day of school there; we visited Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle and Struthof concentration camp, both in France. We went mountain biking and shopping and swimming. We spent several days in the Black Forest with her extended family. We took a train to Berlin to visit another old friend of mine and stayed with his family a few days, visiting all over Berlin and Potsdam. A highlight there was the Holocaust Memorial. From there we flew to Paris, staying only two nights, but seeing the Louvre, the Ferris Wheel, Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chappelle, the Musee d'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. A train took us back to Germany and our home base. My sister took us to the Swiss Alps and we hiked all day in, stayed at the Faulhorn, and hiked out the next day. Everything went perfectly. It was amazing and unforgettable.
Back in the U.S., I decided to read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer because a high school class I subbed for in September was reading it. He was a strong character, with his big opinions on abstraction and security and material greed. In November I finished Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. It was the theme for a women's retreat I went to. I'd read it before. Still love that book. I also finished The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, which my German friends had recommended. Yikes, talk about disintegration of a life.
In November I read to my kids A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. Wonderful of course. I did a paper on that book in high school. Also read Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon to the kids. Wait - reading Stephen King to the kids? He wrote it for his daughter and it was suspenseful and delightful. Page 167: In those years, Thomas discovered two things: guilt and secrets, like murdered bones, never rest easy; but the knowledge of all three can be lived with. He's a pretty amazing author. Several years ago I read his book On Writing and learned a ton. I took lots of notes on that, including "Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." and "It's always about the story." and "fear is at the root of most bad writing." His lasting impression on me was "Write a lot and read a lot." "Just start." I was inspired. I didn't start writing my book until a few years later though.
December went quick with Dust by Arthur Slade. Interesting, but felt too brief. I read Roland Smith's Peak to the kids. What an excellent story! And a great time of year to read about all that snow. I got a white elephant gift at a Christmas party of Bared to You by Sylvia Day. (The gift came with a set of handcuffs!) Okay, that was different. I couldn't help but feel sorry for those messed up characters. Then it was winter break and I finished the year by reading Hunger Games to the kids, which they of course loved and have reread for themselves a couple of times.
I think my favorite book from 2012 was The Corrections. What's a favorite book of yours?
Ah, I like all kinds.
By April I had long been planning our family trip to Europe. Knowing I would be in Paris, I read Baxter's lovely The Most Beautiful Walk in the World. I took a few notes, but no quotes. I also read The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick to the kids. I like to read those young adult fantasy books every once in awhile.
And then In May I read A. S. Byatt's Possession. Captivating. It does possess you.
page 21: She had enticed them in like an old witch.
page 97: "I make but a stammering companion, I have no graces."
page 99: "It might put a cat among the pigeons."
page 116: ... have heard the bloodless cries of the vanished and given them voice.
page 161: Lady Bailey changed the subject to hunting, which she discussed with Maude and her husband, leaving Roland to an inner ear full of verbal ghosts and rattle of his spoon.
page 185: - the only life I am sure of is the life of the imagination.
page 196: "Now I must discipline myself... or we are swallowed up, both of us, in frippery imaginations, and vain speculations."
page 508: How true it is that one needed to be seen by others to be sure of one's own existence.
During this time I also read Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's For Freedom - The Story of a French Spy to the kids. I'd gotten this from the library with the whole Europe trip in mind. Then in June it was The Secret of Castle Cant by K. P. Bath, also to the kids. My sister had given me The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen to return to our exchange sister in Germany (we would be staying with her much of the time there.) I decided to read it before returning it, and actually finished it there. Interesting story. What characters and description.
page 33: He was clutching Denise's umbrella in his fist without opening it, and still is seemed not his fault, that he was getting drenched.
page 146: Outside the weather was curdling.
page 158: And the posture of the older oak trees reaching toward this sky had a jut, a wildness and entitlement, predating permanent settlement; memories of an unfenced world were written in the cursive of their branches.
Our trip was for three weeks mid July through the first week of August. I had two guide books along, one about Paris and one about Germany. We flew in to Zurich and were met by my exchange sister and her son. Their home outside of Frieburg became our home base. My kids attended a day of school there; we visited Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle and Struthof concentration camp, both in France. We went mountain biking and shopping and swimming. We spent several days in the Black Forest with her extended family. We took a train to Berlin to visit another old friend of mine and stayed with his family a few days, visiting all over Berlin and Potsdam. A highlight there was the Holocaust Memorial. From there we flew to Paris, staying only two nights, but seeing the Louvre, the Ferris Wheel, Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chappelle, the Musee d'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. A train took us back to Germany and our home base. My sister took us to the Swiss Alps and we hiked all day in, stayed at the Faulhorn, and hiked out the next day. Everything went perfectly. It was amazing and unforgettable.
Back in the U.S., I decided to read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer because a high school class I subbed for in September was reading it. He was a strong character, with his big opinions on abstraction and security and material greed. In November I finished Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. It was the theme for a women's retreat I went to. I'd read it before. Still love that book. I also finished The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, which my German friends had recommended. Yikes, talk about disintegration of a life.
In November I read to my kids A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. Wonderful of course. I did a paper on that book in high school. Also read Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon to the kids. Wait - reading Stephen King to the kids? He wrote it for his daughter and it was suspenseful and delightful. Page 167: In those years, Thomas discovered two things: guilt and secrets, like murdered bones, never rest easy; but the knowledge of all three can be lived with. He's a pretty amazing author. Several years ago I read his book On Writing and learned a ton. I took lots of notes on that, including "Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." and "It's always about the story." and "fear is at the root of most bad writing." His lasting impression on me was "Write a lot and read a lot." "Just start." I was inspired. I didn't start writing my book until a few years later though.
December went quick with Dust by Arthur Slade. Interesting, but felt too brief. I read Roland Smith's Peak to the kids. What an excellent story! And a great time of year to read about all that snow. I got a white elephant gift at a Christmas party of Bared to You by Sylvia Day. (The gift came with a set of handcuffs!) Okay, that was different. I couldn't help but feel sorry for those messed up characters. Then it was winter break and I finished the year by reading Hunger Games to the kids, which they of course loved and have reread for themselves a couple of times.
I think my favorite book from 2012 was The Corrections. What's a favorite book of yours?
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
16 Books in 2011
By now I was reading a fair amount. I spent hours waiting for kids at their lessons or games and I often had time at work - prep periods and breaks when I was subbing. I always carried a book with me.
Since my daughter was reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I decided to read that series. Definitely engaging. I read the first two books in January and finished the third in February. Also in February I read The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar, such a haunting, heartbreaking story. Wow, great book. I kept one quote from page 174: The promiscuous trees bled yellow and red and gold with such an obscene lavishness, it made them blush.
In March I finished reading Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson to the kids, and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner to myself. I had read The Life of Pi a few years ago by Yann Martell and so read his Beatriz and Virgil in May. I love his odd perspective and was completely spellbound by this unusual story. Sometimes I don't collect any quotes even if I really like the book.
I read Catherine Called Birdy to the kids in June since we had liked Karen Cushman's other books. That was a fun historical trip. Another loan from the MIL, I finished Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress in July and really enjoyed visiting that part of the world. In August my family and I stayed at Holden Village for a week and I borrowed E. M. Forster's A Room with a View from the library there. I'd always loved the movie and the book was a whole different experience. The language of the characters made it a pure delight. It even merited a couple quotes.
Page 6: "It was impossible to snub anyone so gross."
and page 9: "It is so difficult... to understand people who speak the truth."
I think both of these quoted the aunt.
In the fall of 2011 I was doing a long-term sub job working with special needs kids and especially with English Learners at the middle school. In this area, the kids learning English are primarily from Mexico and I got to use my Spanish skills a lot. I also had that daily prep time. In September I read March by Geraldine Brooks, taking up the story of the Little Women's father. It's a short but satisfying novel covering issues of the Civil War and race. I also reread Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Two great books in October: Day of the Bees by Thomas Sanchez and Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon. In November it was another book borrowed from the MIL: Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. Loved it! And The Summerhouse by Jude Deveraux in December, which was very different from the other books I'd been reading.
And I started another book...
Since my daughter was reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I decided to read that series. Definitely engaging. I read the first two books in January and finished the third in February. Also in February I read The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar, such a haunting, heartbreaking story. Wow, great book. I kept one quote from page 174: The promiscuous trees bled yellow and red and gold with such an obscene lavishness, it made them blush.
In March I finished reading Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson to the kids, and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner to myself. I had read The Life of Pi a few years ago by Yann Martell and so read his Beatriz and Virgil in May. I love his odd perspective and was completely spellbound by this unusual story. Sometimes I don't collect any quotes even if I really like the book.
I read Catherine Called Birdy to the kids in June since we had liked Karen Cushman's other books. That was a fun historical trip. Another loan from the MIL, I finished Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress in July and really enjoyed visiting that part of the world. In August my family and I stayed at Holden Village for a week and I borrowed E. M. Forster's A Room with a View from the library there. I'd always loved the movie and the book was a whole different experience. The language of the characters made it a pure delight. It even merited a couple quotes.
Page 6: "It was impossible to snub anyone so gross."
and page 9: "It is so difficult... to understand people who speak the truth."
I think both of these quoted the aunt.
In the fall of 2011 I was doing a long-term sub job working with special needs kids and especially with English Learners at the middle school. In this area, the kids learning English are primarily from Mexico and I got to use my Spanish skills a lot. I also had that daily prep time. In September I read March by Geraldine Brooks, taking up the story of the Little Women's father. It's a short but satisfying novel covering issues of the Civil War and race. I also reread Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Two great books in October: Day of the Bees by Thomas Sanchez and Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon. In November it was another book borrowed from the MIL: Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. Loved it! And The Summerhouse by Jude Deveraux in December, which was very different from the other books I'd been reading.
And I started another book...
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Reading list up through 2010
Inspiration comes from everywhere.
I love to read books. A good story, a good phrase can definitely inspire me. A few years ago I started writing down the titles and authors of the books I read, in case I wanted to remember it later, maybe reread even. Sometimes when I read I have to keep a sentence, so I write it onto my bookmark. I started compiling these too. Not every book, not even every sentence that snaps my eye. It isn't even necessarily an important sentence. But they are ones that speak to me. Call me a collector.
In high school and college I rarely read anything beyond the required reading for classes. When I got married my husband would read to me in the evenings while I knitted, things like The Brothers K and The Hotel New Hampshire. I was working full time, then the kids were born, husband went back for another degree, busy, busy, busy. My MIL (mother-in-law) would loan me lots of books. (Still does!) I remember reading Oryx and Crake and The Poisonwood Bible and some others. There was a short stint of being part of a book club sometime around 2006 and we read The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Memoirs of a Geisha , something by Anne Lamott, The Five People You Meet In Heaven and some others I don't remember. One woman of our group had twins and we stopped meeting.
In 2008-09 I led a book club in my daughter's 5th grade class. We were a small group - four or five top readers (including my daughter) needing a challenge. We read Shabanu, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Giver, and Farewell to Manzanar. All such great stories, for very different reasons. I loved discussing the books with the kids. Here's when I started recording the titles and authors. I also read Angels and Demons, Over Sea, Under Stone, Skipping Christmas, The Dark is Rising, The Midwife's Apprentice, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree (My sister loaned the Susan Cooper books to me, incredulous that I never read them as a kid,) The Shack (curious to see what all the fuss was about,) Whatever It Takes (nonfiction about school polity, teacher organization, education theory etc), A.S. Byatt's fun Little Black Book of Stories, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (clever!), NPR's collection This I Believe II (that was a gift from someone,) The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (good read!), and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees.
I have always read to my children, especially at bedtime. Countless children's books, many over and over. Some of my favorites are Jamberry, Time for Bed, The Big Red Barn, The Baby BeeBee Bird, anything by Shel Silverstein, Open Wide - Tooth School Inside, Stellaluna. I had read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to them, several in the Harry Potter series and even Little Women. But now I was writing down the titles. In 2009-10 I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Flipped by Wendelin VanDraanen, Artemis Fowl, Anne of Green Gables and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to them. I love reading aloud to them still. Many nights, though, they're reading their own books. They both read a lot.
In 2010 I read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (one of my all-time favorites!) and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks and Carl Hiasson's Nature Girl. These are great stories, lots of inspiration there. In July I read Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh and Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Then I read a huge book that my MIL loaned to me (she is a book hound! I get lots of books from her) called Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. Didn't finish it until October, but here began my quote collecting. Page 531: SixPack's philosophy "always to do without those things I didn't dare to lose."
Sometimes the turn of a phrase, even dangling all by itself, can make you pause.
I love to read books. A good story, a good phrase can definitely inspire me. A few years ago I started writing down the titles and authors of the books I read, in case I wanted to remember it later, maybe reread even. Sometimes when I read I have to keep a sentence, so I write it onto my bookmark. I started compiling these too. Not every book, not even every sentence that snaps my eye. It isn't even necessarily an important sentence. But they are ones that speak to me. Call me a collector.
In high school and college I rarely read anything beyond the required reading for classes. When I got married my husband would read to me in the evenings while I knitted, things like The Brothers K and The Hotel New Hampshire. I was working full time, then the kids were born, husband went back for another degree, busy, busy, busy. My MIL (mother-in-law) would loan me lots of books. (Still does!) I remember reading Oryx and Crake and The Poisonwood Bible and some others. There was a short stint of being part of a book club sometime around 2006 and we read The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Memoirs of a Geisha , something by Anne Lamott, The Five People You Meet In Heaven and some others I don't remember. One woman of our group had twins and we stopped meeting.
In 2008-09 I led a book club in my daughter's 5th grade class. We were a small group - four or five top readers (including my daughter) needing a challenge. We read Shabanu, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Giver, and Farewell to Manzanar. All such great stories, for very different reasons. I loved discussing the books with the kids. Here's when I started recording the titles and authors. I also read Angels and Demons, Over Sea, Under Stone, Skipping Christmas, The Dark is Rising, The Midwife's Apprentice, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree (My sister loaned the Susan Cooper books to me, incredulous that I never read them as a kid,) The Shack (curious to see what all the fuss was about,) Whatever It Takes (nonfiction about school polity, teacher organization, education theory etc), A.S. Byatt's fun Little Black Book of Stories, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (clever!), NPR's collection This I Believe II (that was a gift from someone,) The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (good read!), and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees.
I have always read to my children, especially at bedtime. Countless children's books, many over and over. Some of my favorites are Jamberry, Time for Bed, The Big Red Barn, The Baby BeeBee Bird, anything by Shel Silverstein, Open Wide - Tooth School Inside, Stellaluna. I had read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to them, several in the Harry Potter series and even Little Women. But now I was writing down the titles. In 2009-10 I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Flipped by Wendelin VanDraanen, Artemis Fowl, Anne of Green Gables and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to them. I love reading aloud to them still. Many nights, though, they're reading their own books. They both read a lot.
In 2010 I read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (one of my all-time favorites!) and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks and Carl Hiasson's Nature Girl. These are great stories, lots of inspiration there. In July I read Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh and Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Then I read a huge book that my MIL loaned to me (she is a book hound! I get lots of books from her) called Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. Didn't finish it until October, but here began my quote collecting. Page 531: SixPack's philosophy "always to do without those things I didn't dare to lose."
Sometimes the turn of a phrase, even dangling all by itself, can make you pause.
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