May 1, 2009
So that's what
So that’s what President Obama is reading. (I do so love his formal title. I hate formal titles as a rule, but referring to him by his first name just seems to lack occasion.) The obvious question then is, what about me? I’m now reading Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay, from my stack of novels to get through before Baby is born. It’s only the second book by Hay I’ve read, after Late Nights on Air which I so unsecretly loved. Her fiction is a bit disorienting, characters with such idiosyncratic traits that they’re hard to get one’s head around, the same way people are. The sort of characters you might misuse the word “random” for. I also finished reading Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons this week, after DGR’s review. And I’m not writing much of anything– I have fourteen submissions ready to send out as soon as I can muster up the energy (Saturday?), and I think I’m done until long post-Baby (which is different from “forever”). All I want to do these days is read, read, read, and thankfully I have plenty of material with which to accommodate that.
April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday
Even though we celebrate religious holidays in a secular fashion at our house, there was plenty going on this Easter Sunday. Springtime, first of all, with blue skies and sunshine. Tulips on the table, and a special Springtime cake. The ever-present squirms of our baby, who we’re just weeks away from meeting. A brilliant dinner of delicious lamb and vegetables, and seeing family. The wonderful news of another new baby, to be joining our extended family in October. This whole weekend full of good friends, delightful celebrations, and the week-old baby we got to play with on Friday. (Indeed, our lives are babyful of late. Which is good practice.) And another day off tomorrow. Now reading (the gorgeous) The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and certainly this is life.
March 31, 2009
More Swim-Lit
I was expecting to enjoy Lauren Groff’s collection of short stories Delicate Edible Birds, but I had no idea that here was another work of swim-lit. Like Groff’s first novel, the marvelous The Monsters of Templeton, these stories take place around bodies of water, and they’re also much concerned with swimming and swimmers. (I’ve not finished the book yet, but I’ve just started reading one story about a deep-sea diver). I realized that I’d read the story L. Debard and Aliette before, in the 2006 Atlantic Fiction Issue, and remember it quite vividly these years later– turned out I liked Lauren Groff before I even knew Lauren Groff. It’s an amazing story of poolside sensuality. The stories linked by these swimming references in a way that intrigues me, and certainly satisfies by latest literary fixation. How positively timely.
March 30, 2009
New life!
This weekend was marvelous, and yes, mostly because this little picture was taken yesterday across the road from my house. Spring has seen fit to descend upon us early, and I am so grateful. This weekend’s other delights just as splendid as the sunshine– ice cream eaten outside, dinner at Dessert Trends Bistro, lots of time for knitting, getting chores done, Midsomer Murders on DVD, rainy Sundays, rainy Sunday scrabble (with the power out!), brunch with friends, an afternoon tea party (with jammy scones), lots of reading. Lots of book buying too– we got the Free to Be… You and Me 35th Anniversary Edition (which came with a CD!) from Book City yesterday, ostensibly for the baby, but probably more for nostalgia (although the book is beautiful and looks totally up to date). Today’s brunch was located conveniently across the street from This Ain’t The Rosedale Library, and it just so happened I was in the market for The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (upon the recommendation of Patricia Storms). Now I must go for a bubble bath, and read Lauren Groff’s new collection of short stories, Delicate Edible Birds. I am hoping to stay up past 9pm most nights this week, so I do foresee a bit more posting. But then again, you never can tell.
March 25, 2009
Strange and sordid
I’ve spent the last few evenings so outrageously tired that I was seeing double, and the mornings drinking excessive amounts of orange juice. I’d self-diagnosed with diabetes, but now I think I just happen to be cranky and craving vitamin C. I no longer feel like sitting at a desk to type, but when I lie down on my back, I’m unable to breathe, and I don’t yet know how to type on my side. Baby is currently kicking my computer, having spent the entire day pummeling me from the inside, which makes me happy actually, nothing to worry about. I slept better last night (except for strange sordid dreams involving Tom Selleck and fondue), and feel tonight I might not actually lapse into a coma at 9:00. Also it is raining=spring.
I am now reading Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist. Her books are never actually so enjoyable, and always take me an age to get done, but they’re worthwhile and so various. Last night I finished reading Doubting Yourself to the Bone by Thomas Trofimuk, as recommended by Melanie. It was a beautiful, strange book, a poet’s book, I think, which might not be everybody’s thing, but I liked it, and didn’t even get bothered that it was mostly in second person. I think she’s right that this is one that leaves you thinking for a while. And now I’ve got a zillion other books lined up on my to-be-read shelf, and I really ought to step up because my wee kicky baby’s due date is just two months away.
March 19, 2009
In addition
I’m now reading The Believers by Zoe Heller, who I’ve loved a long long time. On the weekend I read Anne Fleming’s Pool-Hopping, which, in addition to being swim-lit, was a stellar collection of stories. In light of her latest book Life Sentences, the remarkable Laura Lippman’s top ten memorable memoirs. Today I was sent a link to Based On Books, an interesting review site of books-based films. The Flying Troutmans is named to The Orange Prize longlist. Charlotte Ashley’s Tangential to a History of Reading points to significant flaws in Sydney Henderson’s literary character. And on literature and returning soldiers.
March 5, 2009
Rumours Afoot
Now reading Come, Thou Tortoise. Now full of banana scones. Rona Maynard (who never misses anything) has referred me to Persimmon Tree (an online literary magazine by women over sixty) and a review by Laura Miller of Elaine Showalter’s new book A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. Dovegreyreader celebrates her blog’s birthday with an interview with Justine Picardie. Stephany Aulenback contemplates names for her baby (and in case you’re wondering, we’ve got names for our’s already, both boy and girl options lifted from children’s novels that have the hero’s name in the title). Canada Reads is now without Mercy. Zoe Heller profiled (and her new book The Believers is out now). I found the G&M’s discussion of the smutty novel Wetlands far more entertaining than I’m sure the book would be. And over at the Biblioasis blog, read Terry Griggs’ foreward to the reprint of her GG-nominated collection Quickening. The reprint is out this spring from Biblioasis, along with a new work by Griggs, both of which I’m thrilled to read– I encountered her first with the Salon des Refuses, and I’m entranced now. Rumours also afoot that she might stop by for an interview here.
February 26, 2009
Two fat things, and a few wonderful things
I’m now reading and thoroughly enjoying a big fat American novel, Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos. To be followed by The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Trembley, which appears to have no paragraphs, but all the same, I’m hoping to really like it. Which will be my Canada Reads lot read. And then, that my dad is now cancer-free, my husband does not have glaucoma but that he does still have a job, and our baby is fabulous and kicking. We’ve booked a weekend away in early April. Also, how about this weather? It felt like springtime on this February morning…
February 19, 2009
Cusp of falling headlong
I’m now reading The Outlander, which I’m not particularly loving, but I feel I may be on the cusp of falling headlong into, particularly if DGR’s assessment is right. Though I do fear I may have set literary standards too high, having spent part of this weekend reading Jools Oliver‘s Diary of an Honest Mum. (You can read the hilariously digested version here). We shall see… Elsewhere, I loved Rona Maynard’s take on the Facebook 25 things meme. To Nigel Beale for the best used book sales in Canada (and I concur, because it includes my favourite). My baby kicks like mad to this song. And there would be more, if I weren’t so tired, or if lately the newspaper had been remotely interesting.
January 26, 2009
Living in the memory of a love that never was
I loved Orlando, unsurprisingly. It was so terrible funny and fresh, and relevant, exuberant. I could read it again and again, and each time discover the book anew. And so now I’m reading Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon (the gorgeous McSweeneys hardback, though it’s coming out in paperback in Feb.), and Laura Lippman’s collection of stories Hardly Knew Her (which I look forward to finishing in the bath this evening).
Online and periodically, I’ve been up to my nose in Oliver Jeffers interviewed in The Guardian; on Obama as storyteller and one of the many Midwesterners who’ve explored their identity through story; Rebecca Rosenblum’s Once finds another ideal reader; my doppelganger Gwyneth recommends “amazing, transportive novel[s]” (via Jezebel); LRB underlines why I’ll be renewing my subscription with Hilary Mantel’s memoir on life in Jeddah, and John Lanchester’s “Is It Art?” on video games. Lisa Gabriele is profiled in The Star (and have you seen her touting her book on Dragon’s Den?).
This weekend I grew out of my pants, knit some, helped entertain friends, sang “Long Long Time” whilst strumming my guitar, read a lot, wrote some, slept in, visited family member daily in hospital (who is going to be okay!!), baked a cake, ate a lot of spinach, drove a really large cargo van, danced around the kitchen, and inherited a bumbo seat and a jolly jumper.
