February 24, 2007
Injurious Reads
Everyone is right. Disgrace is wonderful. And Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford is impossible to take in morsels– I keep binging. Now reading Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin. Upcoming: The Library at Night.
I had a reading-related injury today when I read whilst brushing my teeth, paid too little attention to the latter activity, brushed too hard and and now my poor sweet gums are ailing. Reading is a dangerous business really. Sometimes holding the book makes my elbow ache.
I just came back from a splendid dinner at the beautiful new home of Natalie Bay whose fine company made the evening fly by. We’ve lived in all the same countries and so we spend most of our time talking about things no one else can stand to hear about. Which suits us well. And we’re off to Peterborough for the weekend, and the temperature calls for brass monkeys.
Further, Tide Simple Pleasures has rendered our apartment redolent with something slightly synthetic, but we like it. It smells better than we do. And, all real pleasure this week has been brought to us by crumpets.
February 21, 2007
Book Eating
Thank you to Patricia for referring me to The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers. As a book eating girl, incredible or not, of course I’d be interested.
Along those lines I’ve been ransacking libraries lately. I came home from work yesterday with Disgrace by JM Coetzee, Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe. At the public library, I’ll soon be due to pick up Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Son of Rosemary, which I bet will be absolute crap but Rosemary’s Baby was such a stunning tale (really), Stuart and I have to see what happened next, even if the future was very badly written.
Lately time has been wasted on my absolute fascination with Eric Delko. Ever since he was shot– there’s nothing like a man brought back from the dead. I’m totally in lust. His real life counterpart keeps an offical website here.
At our house we’re currently obsessed with red grapefruit.
February 16, 2007
Fierce
Upon a recommendation, I read A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins and found it so illuminating. I don’t really believe you can learn fiction from a book (except books of fiction, of course), but I’m right in the middle of my big project and reading such a guide at this stage is quite practical. Shines light on what might be wanting, and made me think of a few things I never even considered. And then I can go right to my story and apply what I’ve learned. The book also dealt with matters of structure I’ve been grappling with. My aim is to have my story done by the end of this month so that I can spend March dealing with it as a whole. Though this aim would be more achievable if February were just a bit longer. Though if February were any longer, I would probably lose my mind.
On lending books— most people who know me know me well enough not to even ask. Lending out a book fills me with terrific anxiety and I don’t feel better until it’s back in its home. Because as much as I love books as objects, I love my library as an entity even more. When I prune my shelves, however, I always make sure I give away the discards. I have a moral objection to profiting from books. I feel that karmically I will benefit somehow by spreading that love– whether to a college book sale, or a friend.
Now reading Ladykiller, which I would sum up as “fierce”.
My Valentines Day haul was ace: I got a box of Celestial Seasonings Tea. I gave Stuart a grapefruit. And I also made him a chocolate treat from a recipe in Globe Style (“Triple Chocolate Attack”), though I made plenty and got to enjoy as much as he did.
February 13, 2007
Self Portrait
We’re tired at our house, which is what happens when we both spend the night having dreams in which we are struggling to sleep. And so for today, in lieu of coherence, Pickle Me This brings you me waiting for the tub to fill. Turban-headed because if my Japanese life taught me anything, it was that a bath sans shower is foul. And I like this image because it incorporates four of my favourite things: books, baths, big mugs of tea and Stuart (for it is his robe after all). Happy All The Time was a splish-splash delight.
Today in the post was a letter from Bronwyn, with whom I’ve defied Laurie Colwin’s quote from Happy All The Time: “Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed”. (That said woman is Bronwyn and not me should be revelatory to nobody). And her note contained the news that she has subscribed me to the London Review of Books, which is sort of like having pennies rain from the sky. I’d say life must be mostly good, with friends like that.
And I think Lucky Beans is one of the prettiest blogs I’ve ever seen.
February 11, 2007
Culling Nothing
Wonderful! Some writers’ rooms (with photos!). This one is Hilary Mantel’s. Here for literary friendships, and rivalries. Calvin Trillin in conversation. The beginning of this article is something a lot of book collectors can related to, on pruning your shelves: “…the same thing happens with every potential discard: You start to read it. Four hours later, you wake up on the floor, having culled nothing.” This article pleased me– on being a good wife. Heather Mallick’s manifesto— it’s always amusing to read the comments of her irate (and apparently avid) readers.
February 8, 2007
At 57 Mount Pleasant Street
Bronwyn and I once had the pleasure (or terror) of seeing The Proclaimers live at the T in the Park festival in Scotland, and I must say I’ve never been part of a scarier crowd. We both very nearly cried, but then neither of us thrive in chaos at the best of time. We just thought that we like “500 Miles” sort of, and we could hum along with it, but the experience was like being at a ten-thousand-strong revival when you’re sort of not bothered about Jsus. It was a cultural thing, and I thought of it whilst reading this article about how the English just don’t “get” the point of those bespectacled boys. The Costa Book of the Year has been won, and it’s a book researched entirely in the British library which takes place in Northern Ontario. Ohhh! CanCon (sort of). On movie/book cover tie-ins. Irène Némirovsky. And last night I was lucky enough to attend Trudeau night at The Kama Reading Series which was lovely, except that Stephen Clarkson and Peter C. Newman never showed!
Today I’m starting Jacob’s Room for the first time.
February 7, 2007
Voluble
“A literary portrait of marriage”, so says this profile of Calvin Trillin of About Alice (which I read in December). A different perspective on those streamlined classics. Margaret Atwood once again on arts funding cuts.
Just finishing No Longer at Ease.
My friend Sk8 proposed to her lovely boyfriend in the company of bison on Sunday, and he said yes. Hooray!
And finally, Sunday night I saw a penguin being eaten by a seal on David Attenborough, and I’ve been traumatized ever since.
February 6, 2007
From YA to Feldman
My favourite bookish link of the week is Lois Lowry’s blog. She has a website too. I loved her Anastasia books when I was young, and I am going to be rereading the first one in the near future. It occured to me yesterday that my first references to Freud, Gertrude Stein and Billie Holiday were courtesy of her. I’m glad she’s made a such a fine place for herself online. Another YA author I enjoyed who has done so is Marilyn Sachs, and looking through her bibliography brought back quite a few memories.
Speaking of ghosts of books past, I found Stump the Bookseller recently while searching for the book Me and Fat Glenda. My google query was “burgers” and “inez” (marvelous thing seach engines) and evidently someone had had a similar question because this book had appeared at Stump the Bookseller. Readers write in with bits they can remember of long-lost books, their queries are available for perusal, and you can fill in other readers’ gaps, or check out the “solved” section to bring back memories of your own. It’s quite cool.
Along the lines of YA, I’ve been inspired to read The Unreluctant Years: A Critical Approach to Children’s Literature by the most famous Toronto librarian of all, Lillian H. Smith. Recommended by the booklet “100 Memorable Books” which I picked at my local branch of the Toronto Public last week. And you should get one of those if you’re able. It’s a list of books recommended by TPL librarians as not necessarily the best or most important books, but books which have had an impact on their own lives. It’s a lovely booklet with great commentary and best of all, it’s free. Thank the TPL. I always do.
Further in Toronto things, check out Write Around Town, a new column by Ragdoll whose blog I enjoy. February is bursting with bookish business.
And finally, I think I’m starting a new feature here at Pickle Me This. This past month I’ve been banned from the internet Wednesday to Friday between 8:30 and 5:30. I’ve made my husband take the internet cable to work with him because I have the most incredible talent of whiling my time away on internet inanities. Last week’s was my high school’s ‘where are they now’ page, which provided an afternoon of fun to my BFs Britt and Jennie when I sent it their way. “This is a goldmine” quoth Britt. Oh Britt, it gets better. This week’s time-sucker was the best site on all the net, Corey Feldman’s homepage. This site is essential. If it weren’t for this site, we couldn’t have had this conversation tonight at dinner:
S- (talking about something I can’t remember) is very zen.
K- Corey Feldman’s son is called Zen.
S- Who’s Corey Feldman?
It seems they didn’t have him in England. But really folks, if it weren’t for Corey Feldman’s homepage, I could never have segued into the most important conversation my husband and I have ever had.
February 6, 2007
Bookishly (sort of)
I want to address two books, not of the literary sort.
The first is Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin, which I mention because Ms. Calhoun was talking about cooking the other day. I credit this cookbook with teaching Stu and I how to cook. Our credo that a Jeanne Lemlin recipe has never failed us remains ever-true, and we often wish we could be adopted into her family so she would cook for us. Failing that, we cook her stuff ourselves. Vegetable Tagine, Greek Pasta Casserole, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Quesidillas, Veggie Pot Pie, Garlicky Squash Penne, and the pizza dough are now some of our favourites. A variety of salads that saw us through a summer too hot for the oven. She has also provided me with two of my very best cakes: lemon almond and carmelized apple upside-down. And the thing is that we aren’t even vegetarian, but last year when we were ninks (no income, no kids) meat was just too precious. And we rarely eat meat now. Thanks to Jeanne, we don’t really have to. So yes, a cookbook recommendation to other burgeoning cooks.
The second is very loosely considered a book– my passport, expired-just after five good years. And what a time it’s been. I applied for it in my final semester of my undergraduate studies, as I was all set to go continental come graduation. Previous to that, I’d hardly been anywhere. But this little passport saw me in and out of a variety of European countries by air and plane, on a two year working holiday to the UK, on a visa to work in Japan for a year (with one extension), in and out of Thailand, and my favourite visa of all: my UK entry clearance as a “Marriage Visitor”, issued by the British consulate in Tokyo. For the last year and a half, my passport has been rather unoccupied (see “ninks” reference in above paragraph), but we’re off to England (hurrah!) in June. And I do look forward to seeing where my new passport takes me, because these things, of course, one can never predict.
February 1, 2007
Sites to see
The big news is that echolocation issue six is online and it’s beautiful. The launch is tomorrow night, Thursday, February 1st, 2007 8pm and thereafter at Labspace Studio, 276 Carlaw Ave., Suite 202. www.labspacestudio.com.
Also online, I’ve just found Jennica Harper’s website, where you can find out more about this fabulous poet/screenwriter/comedian/teacher/etc/etc.
And finally, we bring you every book Art Garfunkel has read since June 1968 (via 50 Books). The world has beeen waiting too long.
