January 21, 2009
A terrifying prospect
Tonight, after I do five thousand other things, I will begin to read Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and I must admit to finding said prospect a little bit terrifying. Woolf is pretty intimidating at the best of times, and the premise of this book makes me particularly uneasy in its oddness. I’ve been assured by many, however, that Orlando is readable, accessible, and upon reading the Woolf’s preface, I’ve detected an ounce of humour. We shall see how this proceeds, but I’m crossing my digits that all goes well.
January 8, 2009
Links and birds
Now reading The Darren Effect by Libby Creelman, which is fabulous, and I’m right in the middle with no idea of what comes next. Maud Newton speculates about why copies of Lush Life (which I reviewed last month) are so hard to come by. Dovegreyreader encounters The Robber Bride. On the history of stenography (subscription required). Jon Evans wonders why he shouldn’t write about Africa, which led me to “How to Write About Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina. A short story by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. And more on used books.
I watched The Birds on the weekend, which is based on a short story by Daphne DuMaurier (whose Rebecca I so delighted in last year). I’ve not read the short story but checked out the plot synopsis and it seems as though the screenwriter really only used the premise– and yet… Though this is a full length film, it seemed undeniable that it’s source material was a short story. What we know of the characters and what happens to them is really not the point, rather the point is the moment (which is so incredibly terrifying, tacky special effects aside). So interesting to me how clearly the short storyness remained. I’ll have to read the story and see if it came about itself similarly.
December 23, 2008
Holidays
I’m now on my holidays, so expect to get plenty of reading done over the next two weeks. I just finished reading Penelope Lively’s memoir Oleander, Jacaranda about her childhood in Egypt. More than a memoir, actually, it is an investigation into the dawning of consciousness ala Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood. I enjoyed it immensely, and not only for its endpapers. Now just beginning Rainforest by Jenny Diski, and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. Now enjoying the lights on the zmas tree, one blizzard after another, and the ache of my muscles after this afternoon’s swim.
December 20, 2008
I prefer weak tea!
“Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile again. He was still more perpelexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness that reverted instinctively to the pardon of offences. ‘It has never occurred to Mr. Winterbourne to offer me any tea,’ she said, with her little tormenting manner.
‘I have offered you advice,’ Winterbourne rejoined.
‘I prefer weak tea!’ cried Daisy, and she went off with the brilliant Giovanelli.” –Henry James, Daisy Miller
December 16, 2008
Stuff and Things
My new favourite blog of the moment is The Rachel Papers. Find out what Maud Newton has enjoyed reading this year. Hilariously (via Broadsides) is Target Women: Jewelry. Stephanie Nolen is amazing. Rebecca Rosenblum’s best books of the year, and her book shows up on Steven W. Beattie’s. Justine Picardie inspires me to want to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time. (Should I? Am I a fool to have waited this long anyway?) I am now reading Darkmans by Nicola Barker, which I’ll be writing more about in a day or two, because how could I possibly not? And Oh Baby, the Places You Will Go (A Book to be Read in Utero) has found its way into my life (via post)– what a treat. Nigel Beale in conversation with Anne Enright.
December 9, 2008
For the journey
I catch my train to Ottawa in just a little while, though I still have to shower/dress, pack, and shovel snow in the meantime. My stack of books, however, has been prepared. As this is a train journey I am taking all by myself (which happens rarely) to a most special event, I decided that now was a fitting time for me to finally read Carol Shields’ Dressing Up for the Carnival— the last of Shields’ books I had to be read. I am also bringing Darkmans by Nicola Barker, and Consequences by Penelope Lively, The Paris Review Interviews Vol. 1, and a stack of periodicals that I’ll probably ignore just as I have done so during the last two months they’ve been sitting at my bedside.
December 3, 2008
Now
Now reading The Paris Reviews vol. 1, Wally Lamb’s new novel The Hour I First Believed, and Ina-May’s Guide to Childbirth. Now looking forward to going to bed, though I am currently enjoying listening to my husband singing along to The Stone Roses downstairs.
November 28, 2008
It's not Doris Lessing's fault
I am now reading The Diaries of Jane Somers, by Doris Lessing, and liking it completely. I’d always thought Margaret Atwood was the most all-over-the-shop writer ever, until I started reading Doris Lessing– range for the sake of range, it’s amazing. And so it’s not Doris Lessing’s fault that as soon as my orders came in at the library, I put her aside temporarily. It’s just that I’ve been reading quite a lot of weighty books of late, and they made The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday look pretty irresistible once I’d brought it home with me. I used to read Ayun Halliday in Bust when I was little (i.e. 20) and the book is contagiously energetic and as entertaining as her columns. I also like Ayun Halliday because it doesn’t occur to her it mightn’t be possible to have a baby but not a car.
November 16, 2008
Oh, I do love me a good literary mystery
“Ok, I’m sorry, there are a lot of librarians in this story, and libraries as well (which maybe doesn’t bode so well for originality). People are often dismissive of librarians and libraries– as if the words are synonymous with boredom or timidity. But isn’t that where the best stories are kept? Hidden away on the library bookshelves, lost and forgotten, waiting, waiting, until someone like me comes along and wants to borrow them.” –from Justine Picardie’s Daphne
October 29, 2008
Upcoming
Well, though I was a little bit concerned, I’ve enjoyed John Updike’s Too Far to Go, though it served to underline my prejudice towards 1970s marriage as Ice Stormy as you like– how boring the suburbs really must have been, that so many unattractive people kept having sx with one another. Did that end with the ‘eighties? As I assume everyone settled down a bit with the advent of interlocking brick driveways and The Twenty Minute Workout. Plus the widespread use of microwaves.
So I’ll soon start reading Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio. I can’t remember the last biography I read (and so it is fortunate that I keep track of all the books I read– note, I’ve not read a strict biography in the three years I’ve been keeping track, though I’ve read plenty of non-fiction, memoirs, biographical memoirs, but…) and so this will be a change of pace. Not so much thematically, however, as this has been a very Montgomery filled year– Anne Shirley turned 100 this year with all kinds of fanfare, and this very summer I reread both Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon. But I continue to know very little about Montgomery’s life, particular her later life (except what I picked up from As Ever, Booky). So there is a lot to get to know.
