January 29, 2007

Books Mapped

Stuart has kindly pointed my attention toward books mapped at Google Books Search. Only a few books are mapped at the mo, but the maps are fascinating– in particular those which offer some concretization to fictional worlds.

January 29, 2007

Cell One

Speaking of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “Cell One” is in the New Yorker this week and you can read it here. It’s wonderful.

January 29, 2007

Show and tell

Last week The Robber Bride TV movie was slagged off in the Globe, and I must voice my disagreement. The adaptation wasn’t flawless by any means, and I do wonder how the story was different for a man having joined the triumvirate which told so much about women’s relationships. Nevertheless. For two hours last Sunday night my husband and I sat together and thoroughly enjoyed a made-for-CBC movie and I consider this an unusual mark of great achievement.

Speaking of Ms. Atwood, her fine and illuminating piece in Saturday’s paper is here, regarding the federal government axing the promotion of Canadian arts abroad. Mix-Tape mania at The Observer. Today’s feature on violence in Nottingham (which was my home for a while) turns bookish in its reference to the 1958 novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, and I’ve decided to read it soon. Q&A with the marvelous Sue Townsend. Canadians write great songs— Joni Mitchell in particular. Katrina Onstad concurs.

Why why why instead of actually governing has our government launched an idiotic attack upon its opposition? Please please please let’s not retaliate. Give Canadians some credit for intelligence, let this crap slide, and win favour with integrity and dignity.

Things Fall Apart was as powerful as they said. Oh my goodness the last chapter. And this book enlightened quite a few bits of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun.

Though the amazon link for this book is such a lesson in idiot reviewing. Can you imagine prefacing your review of a book like this with “As a writer myself…”? Some nerve. Virginia Woolf never even did that in her criticism, and unless you are Virginia Woolf, you probably shouldn’t either. (I googled said reviewer, and found a link to some of his “work” which was unsurprisingly a pile of crap.) Further, knocking Achebe for his failure to show instead of tell? Oh go puke on yourself. Really.

I’m beginning to sound irate. However it’s January, which is excuse enough, and I will be nicer tomorrow. Now I am going to read Rosemary’s Baby for a good dose of satnic action. Though if it tells instead of shows, I’m totally asking the public library for a refund.

January 26, 2007

Notes on a Scandal

The Guardian Books Blog on books that make you talk to strangers. Whenever I see someone reading Unless, I want to tell them it’s my favourite book in all the world, though I don’t think I ever have. At my library job, however, I am compelled to let patrons know when I think the book they’ve selected is wonderful. And often lately, it has been Interpreter of Maladies or Small Island.

And books to read on trains. The great train reads of my life have been Slouching Towards Bethlehem on the shinkansen to Hiroshima; Various Miracles on the way to Osaka one afternoon (and I read the story “Scenes” whilst stopped at Amagasaki); when we lived in England, our train rides were usually passed with Sunday papers. And I don’t get to take the train anymore, but last year Sweetness in the Belly sure passed a bus journey from Toronto to Ottawa and back just fine.

An interview with Zoe Heller.

Now reading A Biographer’s Tale by AS Byatt, which was not well-regarded by the amazon reviewers, but I like it much so far. And the Public Library has called, with Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (we watched the movie last weekend; it was an obsession of mine in high school; I’m interested in the novel) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (my February classic). Once again, I suppose I can say I have all I need.

Except hair elastics. All of mine have disappeared.

January 23, 2007

In lieu of sensationalism.

Rather than religiously following Canada’s largest murder trial in all its grisly detail, may I suggest you instead read Missing Sarah by Maggie de Vries. I read this book last May, and it’s stayed with me since, and changed the way I think of both prostitution in general, and this court case. Maggie de Vries tells the story of her sister Sarah with such compassion and love, and instills her with the humanity she was so denied at the end of her life.

January 21, 2007

Confronted by Fiction

The book I just finished, I am embarrassed to name, and the book I am reading at the moment, I don’t like much at all. This state of affairs is a deep dark hole which doesn’t please me, and I’ll be climbing out of it in a day or two.

Part two of the Treatise of Zadie Smith. “To read The Virgin Suicides followed by The Idiot followed by Despair followed by You Bright and Risen Angels followed by Bleak House followed by Jonah’s Gourd Vine followed by Play it as it Lays is to be forced to recognise the inviolability of the individual human experience. Fiction confronts you with the awesome fact that you are not the only real thing in this world.” (Oh Zadie I swoon!). Edith Wharton in France. Go Hillary! (How refreshing– a chance for a better world!)

The Robber Bride’s TV adaptation is on tonight. I’ll be watching, mainly because I’ve just started a knitting project and TV becomes handy then– particularly when it’s bookish.

January 10, 2007

Questioning

Why, you might ask, given my love/hate (and mostly hate) relationship with anthologies, am I setting out to read My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle?? I’ve got high(er than usual) hopes for this anthology though. I’m thinking the concrete focus will keep the essays from being too too awful; the text is interspersed with wedding photos (and I’d look at anyone’s wedding pics, strangers and otherwise); I want to read about Michelle Landsberg’s wedding dress; and mostly because I’ll have an excuse to write about my own dress. Which doesn’t even come with a fabulous story, but I talk about my own wedding with as much relish as I look at strangers’ wedding photos. Anyway, we shall see. In addition, I think the book is very well designed.

January 10, 2007

January Classic

I’m back to work at the library this week, which of course means that I go home after most shifts with books in my bag. I picked up The Portable Chekhov today. It’s definitely not the 13 volume Chekhov that Francine Prose recommended, but it’s a start. I’m looking forward to it. It’s my January Classic actually: I’ve decided to read one 19th century book per month this year, just to keep up my credentials.

January 2, 2007

Obit

Philippa Pearce who wrote Tom’s Midnight Garden, one of the seminal works of my childhood.

December 31, 2006

What is left over

Here for Archie Andrews in Vanity Fair. Heather Mallick gives us the saints and standouts of 06. On foresaking the gym for reading poetry. In the Books Blog for on the library debate. By the great Booklust, I was directed to Kimbooktu, which is a books gadget blog! And it’s fantastic. Incidentally, I finished book 172 and am getting through 173 (but it’s not very long). And now I must go and prefer for my New Years Blow Out. Which is not so much of a blow-out, you will probably realize, when I inform you that my first stage of preparation involves baking a carmelized apple cake. But still. The eve promises to be most excellent and bursting with friends.