A Work in Progress

I Got It!

Today my library's Winter Reading Program ended.  I got my mug!  Such little things make me happy.  The back of the mug has a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird, "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience" (Atticus Finch).  I think it is a pretty cool mug, and I am glad that I finally read To Kill a Mockingbird as this ties things together quite nicely.  My other reading choices were all library books.  Along with Harper Lee's novel I read: The Little Balloonist by Linda Donn (nice little story set in Napoleon's France about the first lady hot air balloonist!), Silk by Alessandro Baricco (short, but only so-so--I liked the twist at the end though), Catherwood by Marly Youmans (another so-so read--I liked the descriptions of 17th c. America--I can't imagine being lost and not seeing another human being for weeks and weeks--inconceivable these days), and lastly Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (I am fudging a bit as I am not quite finished with this one--I am trying to like it, but it is an odd book!--I hope to force  myself to finish it tonight...).  I returned a stack of library books (as I hope to concentrate on my own for a while), and I only came home with one new one.  I was looking for Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason as I read such good review of it at Reading Matters (the US edition has a different title), but the library's copy was lost (so I have to wait and get it from a different branch).  Instead I found Before the Frost by Henning Mankell.  This one is set in Sweden.  Now I better get back to Madeleine and her bizarre dreams... 

Time to Reshuffle

Honestly I have very good intentions.  When I check books out from the library, I do want to read each and every one of them.  But sometimes  another book comes along and throws my reading pile off kilter.  In this case a friend of mine surprised me with a book that I have wanted and was on my wish list.  I know a lot of people have already discovered Maureen Corrigan's book, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, and perhaps have already read it.  I wanted it, but I didn't want to buy it in hardcover.  But in the end I lucked out and received it for my birthday.  This means, I am very sorry Girls of a Tender Age--you are being relegated back to the TBR pile.  Since it is a library book--I may or may not get to it before it has to go back.  Lately I have been reading only library books.  The books I had been reading have been completely ignored, and I feel like it is taking me forever to finish anything at all!  But when you read something like this..."It's not that I don't like people.  It's just that when I'm in the company of others--even my nearest and dearest--there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book."  Wow.  Someone else actually thinks like this?  I don't feel so bad now...So, of course I had to start it.  Corrigan also writes in her introduction that "despite the proliferation of mega-bookstores and neighborhood reading groups, most Americans are indifferent to the lure of literature: in fact, according to a Wall Street Journal article of a few years ago, some 59 percent of Americans don't own a single book."  How is this shocking number possible?  Is it correct?  Are there just a few of us keeping these mega-stores in business?  Needless to say I have been sucked in, and am greatly looking forward to this book.  No need to worry, though, I have also gotten back to Emma (who has fallen hard for that cad, Rodolphe), and Daniel (who has just taken Bea to the Cementary of Forgotten Books), and the Piper family (yes...I am waaaayyy behind and the Reading Matters discussion has already started), and, well, I will get to the others as well!

Should I Be Afraid?

Thanks to Iliana for the link to this fun book quiz.  I am 1984 by George Orwell.  Should I be afraid?  Actually I don't think this really surprises me!

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four. You are the
classic warning against the threat of
totalitarianism. To you, politics and
philosophy are inseparable, auchtorities suck
and the reality might not exist outside our
imaginations.

Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Havoc is Right

Today I finished Ronan Bennett's Havoc, in its third year.  Since I can't possibly improve on either this review or this review, I won't rehash the story for you.  It is a compelling read, and had this been my own book, I might possibly have been flagging sections of the book here and there. It is amazing how people never seem to learn from their mistakes and just keep repeating them.  I do have to say that John Brigge's 17th century has to be one of the harshest and most unforgiving periods of time to live in.  I think I may have to read something a bit lighter in tone next!

A Little Something in My Spare Time

I haven't shared any of my needlework lately, and since I actually have recently finished something large-ish, I thought I would do so today.  If I am not reading in my spare time, I am usually working on some sort of needlework project.  I am particularly fond of little needlecases and  similar things to put my supplies in, as well as larger projects like this reproduction sampler.  The original belongs in a private collection.  It is English and has Quaker motifs, and I really love the little beeskep at the top.  I am not the fastest of stitchers, so this took me quite a while to complete, but I am happy with the results (sorry the photo is not the best--it is much nicer in person).  I hope to frame it and hang it in my living room.  Hopefully this weekend I will be able to work on my next needlework project as well as finish one (maybe even two) books!  Have a nice weekend everyone!

Birthday Books

Earlier this week I celebrated a birthday.  Amongst other lovely gifts from my very generous family members and friends, I received a couple of wonderful books. I think this is absolutely the coolest book I have gotten in a long time--Envelopes by Harriet Russell. If you spot this in a bookstore you must take a peek at it.  Per the description on the back of the book, "Harriet Russell has created a wealth of different ways of communicating an address: mazes, join-the-dots, anagrams, illustrations, puns, visual games, experimental fonts, puzzles, and literary wordplay.  You may find it hard to believe that the majority of envelopes arrived at their intended destinations, but they did, and all have postmarks to prove it!  Their safe delivery is a tribute to the heroic postal emplyees (Royal Mail) who rose to the challenge."  I *love* this book!!

I also received a book from my wishlist--Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet edited by Ruth Reichl.  This is from the Modern Library Food series.  There are over 40 essays by contributors such as Ray Bradbury, Anita Loos and Paul Theroux.  I am looking forward to reading this--a combination of food and travel--what more can you ask for?  Another book to add to my bedside pile!  (Thanks MB!!).

Happiness is New Books

It's so nice coming home from work and finding an Amazon box on the porch.  Recently I mentioned reading an interesting article about Sarah Waters and her book Fingersmith.  It sounded so good I had to order it right away (and since I was going into withdrawal from not having bought any new books as of late, I didn't even bother trying to talk myself out of it).  Amongst other prizes it was up for, Fingersmith was a New York Times Notable book, it was shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize as well  as a finalist for the Orange Prize for fiction.  Not too shabby.  I would love to start it right now, but one look at my night table full of books....I will try and finish one or two first.  Of course if you are going to order something from Amazon, you have to try and get the free shipping, which means you can usually get at least two or three paperbacks--and well, you might as well make it worth using the credit card!  So my other choices this time around were; The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (another one I am looking forward to reading soon), The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (because a swashbuckling romp is necessary sometimes in life), and finally The Linnet Bird by Linda Holeman (more Victorian drama).  The next best thing to reading a good book is cozying up next to a pile of good books you plan on reading.

17th-Century Justice

"He (the coroner) turned and motioned to Doliffe, who came forward with the bridle.  A cage for the head, a stone in weight, black-painted hoops of iron in the shape of a helmet. Brigge looked at the protusion of spiked metal attached to the inner part of one of the lower bands, the bit that would stop Shay's tongue.  He had seen women retch and vomit when the bit was forced into their mouths and the bridle locked in place.  He had seen smashed teeth and broken jaws and gashed lips and gums."

--"Havoc, in its third year", by Ronan Bennett

I had no idea such a thing existed, but why should I be surprised.  Yet another reason I am happy to be living in the 21st century.

The Last Stacks

With these two stacks I have now "cataloged" (Library Thing) all the many piles of books that are in my bedroom.  This means I have roughly 450 books laying around in just one room.  I actually have 505 total cataloged at the moment, but I did manage to grab a stack from my book room.  I am quite surprised that I have this many as it certainly doesn't feel like 450!  I only have a shelf full of needlework books in my closet that I haven't yet had the energy to pull down and add yet.  It makes me wonder just exactly how many I have in my book room as I had always thought the vast majority were piled all over the place down there (and I didn't expect there to be so many up here)!  You can click here to see my "fun statistics", though I am honestly not sure what "number of distinct works" means as opposed to total "number of books".  You can see the books I have added so far here.  I am sort of dreading pulling the rest of my books as my computer is upstairs and my book room is downstairs.  This means a lot of trips up and down those stairs with armloads of books!  It is fun to go through my book stacks, though, as it is amazing how many things I forget that I actually own!

Lost in the Woods

"Torquelike, fear encircled her with its dull, constant pressure.  On their seventeeth day in the forest, Catherwood could no longer believe that Gabriel would find them, or that she would discover herself on the doorstep of home.  For six days she had wandered in circles, trying to cross the path.  Once she had dreamed someone had fired a fowling piece in the woods, but she had waked to nothing but the whistles of birds.

Elisabeth's fingers fluttered on her eyelids.  'Ma,' she said. 'way up.'  When Cath opened her eyes there was Elisabeth and the big wilderness of America."

Imagine finding yourself in 17th century America alone in the vast wilderness...

Catherwood: A Novel, by Marly Youmans