August 19, 2007
Wonderful…
Now rereading Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, which I remember nothing about. I read it the first time, according to the inside cover, beginning October 8 2001, and finished that October 27 with a note on blank page at the back, “Wonderful…”. Let’s hope it lives up to my previous reception. And that I read it a bit quicker than I did the first time around, as there are so many books I’ve got scheduled to be read before summer is over. Also now reading the latest Walrus which is proving interesting, though The Future of Reading was less interesting than I wanted it to be.
Earlier today I was happy to be reading a little interview with Margaret Drabble (via Maud Newton). “The biggest fate of all is your marriage partner. It’s extraordinary that you should happen to be at such a party or such a university or even on such a bus ride and meet the man that you’re going to marry, for better or worse. I find these accidental conjunctions that turn the plot of your life fascinating.”
News on the homefront: we’ve just cut into our first homegrown watermelon, and we’ve got a Japanese houseguest arriving on Wednesday.
August 14, 2007
Counting the steps to the door of your heart
There was an instant during “Distant Sun” where the whole world was perfect, and we were swaying, singing. The lullaby that is “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. Their new songs sounded just as good as the ones I know best, and I had to shut my eyes a few times. Crowded House was amazing, and I don’t think I ever appreciated what a live show could truly be. What an absolutely beautiful night.
Coming up is my review of The Raw Shark Texts, and it’s fortunate that I’ve had some time to attempt to get my head around it. Also a review of The Big Book of The Berenstain Bears. Find out what it is to be continuing the aquatic theme with a reread of Margaret Drabble’s The Sea Lady.
Short stories here in The Guardian. As one who gave up on The Bible at the part where Noah’s son finds him drunk and naked, the arguments for and against its readability hold interest for me. “Firstly, there’s the simple point that if the Bible really were the word of God, you’d think that He would be able to make it more interesting”. Jeffrey Eugenides on Middlesex in its second life.
“Do you climb into space?”
August 8, 2007
Golden tomatoes and blue potatoes
Now rereading Carol Shields’s Unless, her masterpiece. I reread this book every summer, an amazing experience that allows one to, for example, pause and ponder the first paragraph for about ten minutes straight. It’s also sad and heartening to be reading this book after having read her book of letters with Blanche Howard in June. I also still maintain that this book is a treatise on novel-writing, which is very exciting seeing as I am returning to my own novel in just a few weeks after this summer of short stories. Anyway, I am enjoying this much the same way I always do, but also differently, of course.
I liked Michael Holroyd’s exasperation with author acknowledgements, as much as acknowledgements are the first part of any book I read. I also enjoyed Holroyd’s sister in law AS Byatt’s treatment of Middlemarch, which you might recall I read for the first time and fell in love with earlier this year. Byatt’s Possession is being “twinned” with Middlemarch for the Vintage Classic Twins Editions, which were brilliantly introduced to me here at dovergreyreader scribbles.
And it’s been nearly a week since I mentioned the garden last– you all must be on the edge of your seats! For your information my husband is now reading Animal Vegetable Miracle and is more obsessed than I was. We revisited the brilliant Trinity Bellwoods Farmers Market and brought home tons of wonderful stuff, including blue potatoes and blackberries. We did a harvest of our garden tonight, and brought in two enormous bowls of tomatoes of all kinds– the window sill is crowded. Tomorrow night I am going to attempt a golden tomato sauce.
July 17, 2007
The best of what's around
Heather Mallick’s latest, in which she gets told off by Margaret Atwood (so you learn sans context). I learn that Margaret Drabble is reading Jules Verne this summer (thanks Leah). And that books win! (naturally– though I think there are even books written by people not named Jonathan and also people with xx chromosomes.) India Knight on why erasing history is a bad thing, and so let’s not censor Tintin. Oh! And on Shirley Hughes, who has written some of the books I’ve always loved– a wonderful piece, in which I find out that “Dogger” is real!
July 11, 2007
Links of late
Links of late: A Midwest Homecoming is the blog I keep reading aloud to who ever is in earshot, scribed by Ms. Leah with whom I shared a bunkbed in Nottingham for three months nearly five years ago. Absolute hilarity, and bookish goodness too, though I suspect she’ll be changing her title, seeing as she’s just decided to move to Korea.
Also, Oprah Schmoprah— book recommendations by some of the bloggers I like best.
Hands down, the best story in the paper all weekend was Elizabeth Renzetti’s “You’d be a numpty to mess about with the weegies”. She writes, “Before you attack a country, it’s probably best to scan their cultural history. Did the two men who drove a blazing Jeep into Glasgow airport last week know nothing about Scotland’s past? Had they never seen Braveheart? Had they never read Rob Roy? Didn’t they know that it is always a bad idea to mess with an angry Scot, especially one from Glasgow? Ye’ll get a wee skelp and nae doot aboot it.” And it only gets better.
An incredible profile of Chinua Achebe here.
Here for summer reading tips. (Stuart was flattered and surprised to see that his recent reading had qualified him as “The Universal Literary Smartarse”).
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 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.
May 24, 2007
Sense
Have you submitted your workplace haiku to Bookninja? I did today, inspired by the haiku they have posted (and by the workplace, of course). Read them here, including a few by my favourite poet Jennica Harper. And then submit your own!
Heather Mallick underlines why I perpetually sing her praises with her piece on challenging authority. Oh, when she writes, “I believe education is important for its own sake. It is the basis of civilization. I especially believe in the teaching of history./ I am an elitist. I want people to be well-read, to value books. Here’s my reasoning. Educated people are more likely to deny authority. People who don’t read don’t have an intellectual storehouse to help them think independently. They do what they’re told. They have an endless desire to please those in authority; they don’t know they don’t have to.” Has anybody in the whole world ever had more sense?
Maud Newton points me toward the following: the hierarchy of adjectives, which are rules you don’t even know you know; and a poem by Grace Paley. And it was my coworker (since we’re giving props here) who showed me this article on the evolution of phonebook catagories. No more shall you be able to look up a buttonhole maker, or carbon paper.
Today I met Erica G walking down Palmerston. I was on Harbord, reading and walking, and she pulled her own book out of her bag, which we discussed as we crossed the street, and then we said our farewells. I think it would be lovely if we all starting asking, “So what are you reading?” instead of “How are you?” when we met. The conversations might be better.
