July 5, 2007
The thing with academics
“‘I’ll tell you what my thing is with academics,’ she continued in a harder tone. ‘They take something that is complete, say a story, that is not material to work with– it’s complete; it is to the writer anyway– and they take it as crude ore that they’re taking out of the ground, to suit some purpose of their own, and I find this outrageous.'” -Mavis Gallant in this month’s Walrus.
July 5, 2007
Stackpole
Maud Newton has pointed me toward Marilynne Robinson’s review of The Maytrees. Katie Roiphe shows that a literary allusion can make self-reflexiveness much more interesting. Outsider top tens (though they missed the obvious choice).
Still reading Portrait of a Lady, and enjoying it, but then my twenty-first century sensibilities makes the nineteenth century read at a dilatory pace. But no, it’s a rich book. I like the American/English dynamic, which I believe would have gone over my head the first time. And Henrietta Stackpole is not so much an inspiration as absolutely absurd, but perhaps that was always the point.
June 28, 2007
New news
Ha, I say. Tina Brown’s new book digested. 50 year past the death of Malcolm Lowry. India Knight remarks brilliantly upon the SalmAn(!) Rushdie affair. And closer to home, our friends Carolyn and Steve got engaged last week. Hooray! And yesterday my summer job was offered to me as a permanent full time position, which I couldn’t refuse because day jobs don’t come better than this. How lucky am I.
June 27, 2007
ReReading
Just days until the Second Great Summer Rereading Project begins, though the rules are slightly different this year. Last year I (almost) exclusively reread from June to August, and found the experience invaluable. If you read as quickly (and therefore sometimes as thoughtlessly) as I tend to, revisiting a book is essential to truly having grasped it. It’s also wonderful to judge your own progress by how a book has changed for you, and it’s fun to find lost objects in the pages (last year I found many cryptic phrases by my own hand, and also a two dollar bill). This year I felt like one month would do for rereading for me, as I had managed to get to so many books last year. But then I realized I’ve got too many new novels to be read, and if I stopped, I might never catch back up again. And so the project will go on for two months, alternating new reads and rereads. I look forward to books I’ve not read in ages, some of the ones which I reread every year, rediscovering forgotten things, and making all kinds of connections. First up is Portrait of a Lady. I am feeling brave.
June 24, 2007
Assemblage
We get all celebratory come June, and today is my birthday. I made a project of keeping it quiet this year, which I thought would be somewhat mature of me and worthy of a woman of twenty-eight years. And so this weekend has been easy and sunshine, and full of the things we like best. We’re just back from brunch and are set for bbq tonight. And with all our celebrations, we’ve got a regular shrine going on at our house. A lovely assemblage of cards here, as well as the two splendid flower arrangements which were such a surprise. The tall, gorgeous wild one was courtesy of my sister, and the other in the magnificent vase was from Bronwyn. They’re not normally side by side, and it’s rather glorious to have flowers all around the house. In none floral news, I received so many lovely things (incl. a Miffy umbrella!), but one in particular I’ve got my nose stuck in. Stuart got me A Memoir of Friendship: The Letters Between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard. But then that much goodness is certainly overwhelming, and I have to put it down for a breath every moment or two.
June 14, 2007
Remember when the boys were all electric?
What a good lunch break I had today, dropping out of a brilliant game of catch to read in the grass until the boys were ready to go back in. Sunny with a breeze. Now reading So May Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor, which connects me to the England I’m missing furiously post-vacation*. The book is wonderful so far. I read McGregor’s first novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things a million years ago, and though I enjoyed it and McGregor himself was doing something remarkable, the book wasn’t perfect. Whereas the sense I’m getting so far is that in his second novel, he’s finding his feet. Which is so exciting, and it’s wonderful to think of his career still ahead of him and books books to read. It will be nice to follow along, just as it has been so far.
And I was very happy to see that Madeleine Thien’s Certainty was nominated for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Pleased that Heather O’Neill’s much-deserving Lullabies for Little Criminals is on the list as well, but I’m rooting for Certainty. O’Neill’s had plenty of fun already, and Certainty is the very best book I’ve read this year.
*Ah, missing furiously. I listen to BBC Radio1 at work, and every since Monday have heard the songs we listened to as we drove across the North of England with the top down, and never in my life have I felt such nostalgia for a last week.
June 12, 2007
Know more
I hope you got the print edition of The Globe this weekend, because Ali Smith’s “Torontode” wonderful, and I cannot find it online. She writes, “I love wandering about in Toronto. I dream about wandering about in Toronto, which could not be more perfect for the wanderer-about, with its leafiness, its windy wide streets in spring and autumn, the smell of sweetness and coffee on Bloor Street by that big grand hotel opposite the museum, the dainty suddenness of Yorkville tucked down the back of all the big-gun commerce like an afterthought, and especially Queen Street, I love wandering around Queen Street, I nearly saw Baby Spice once on Queen Street…” Of course she did.
Also in the same paper, I was impressed that Rex Murphy managed to connect Edward Causabon to global warming, though I am not so sure that I agree with him. Margaret Atwood on Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski: a magnificent article, because I’d never heard of him, but now I want to know more. And Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in The Guardian. Cool thing about that? I got to read it first on paper.
June 11, 2007
Unbooks
Though I do love books, I have a particular aversion to books that aren’t actually books. I am unfond of gift books, decorative books, foam books, faking books, and faux books. I do believe that these inferior items unjustly ride on the coattails of a sacred object. And so it was quite remarkable when I fell in love with this treasure up in the Lakes, though the price tag put it out of my league. 
I suppose I have a particular aversion to books that aren’t books, unless the book happens to be a teapot.
June 9, 2007
Heft
To me, England is the land of books, and we came home with our carry-on full. From the bottom, shall we? The last three acquired at the airport Waterstones on 3 for 2, as we had pounds stirling to burn. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, which I’ve been meaning to get to for two years now, and comes recommended by my sister in law. Stuart chose The Book of Dave by Will Self, and I imagine I shall read it too. And Ian McEwan’s Atonement, because I’ve fallen in love with him and everyone says that this is the best.
Next we come to the 3 for 2s we got in Lancaster. Double Fault by Lionel Shriver who I adore. Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North by Stuart Maconie, because we’re on our Northern kick. And So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor, because I loved his last book, the reviews were great, and plus he lives in Nottingham.
Continuing on to my Persephone books, gifts from Bronwyn who must have read my mind. I got Hetty Dorval, the first novel by our very own Ethel Wilson. Also Kay Smallshaw’s guide How to Run Your Home Without Help, which I suspect will mingle useful, hilarious, and relictness. And It’s Hard to be Hip Over Thirty, poems by Judith Viorst (who wrote Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day).
Next we’ve got Making It Up by Penelope Lively, which was her newest book until quite recently, and I picked that one up in the Oxfam book shop in Lancaster. The last two books are also gifts from Bronwyn: How to be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes, and more poetry with Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy.
The shelves are bursting with delight.
June 6, 2007
Best books won
How cool! Best books won. Though I am on vaca, I could not resist spreading the news that Karen Connelly won the Orange Prize for New Writers for her magnificent The Lizard Cage, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the main Orange Prize for Half of a Yellow Sun. Absolutely brilliant, as these were two of the very best books I read last year.
