July 14, 2008
Bibliochaos
The scene at right indicates a house in chaos, indeed. The room where the books live is being painted (walls, trim and built-in shelving). It’s a big job, and so the books have sought safe harbour under the stairs (in alphabetized stacks, of course). So far I’ve not had to dig through in search of anything, though something will come up over the next few days, inevitably. The very best thing about the redec being that I’ll be able to post a picture of my library afterwards, which I haven’t done up until now because it was horrible.
This weekend was brilliant. We had four (4!) parties to attend, and were hosted marvelously, had such a wonderful time with friends. Today’s was even in suburbia, and we got to swim in a pool– such a treat. I’m now reading Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Home, about to curl up somewhere comfortable and read the very end. If this book is something you’ve been waiting for, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
July 8, 2008
Fits and starts
It’s been a strange day, and I’ve got stitches in my mouth. I’m also a bit doped up, and all of it has been sort of fascinating, however awful. That I’ve been bored, all afternoon. And I am never bored. I firmly believe that boredom is the jurisdiction of the lazy (or of those who forget to carry at book at all times). But this afternoon I’ve not been able to concentrate on very much, save the daring feats of squirrels outside my window, crossing and crisscrossing the street via tightrope power lines. That I’ve been unable to read very much at all, can you believe it. I was reading Marilynne Robinson before, but she requires more attention and care from her readers than I have energy to offer her now. I did listen to the podcast of Lorrie Moore reading her story “Paper Losses”, which is sort of wonderful, actually, as I can’t think of any other day in which I would have cleared the space. In fits and starts, I’ve been rereading Justine Picardie’s If the Spirit Moves You, which is just the ticket, I think, for my current state of mind. I also read another story today, which I hated– the danger of linking books and experience– mainly because I was taking out upon it my “mild discomfort”. But I’m also sure it sort of sucked. And the story will therefore remind me of excruciating pain as I long as I shall live.
I am turning my evening over to the benevolent force of the DVD.
June 26, 2008
A Perfect Match
We don’t talk fashion much, here at Pickle Me This, except when its bookish. But then how bookish is this, to find myself today wearing a dress that was perfectly coordinated with my reading material? I don’t think even cool people have started doing this yet. Or perhaps that they haven’t is the fact that makes them cool…
June 17, 2008
Moth Love
How strange are bookish connections, aren’t they? Of course, when I was reading Sharon Butala’s Fever last week, I could sense how it would relate to Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, which was coming up next. Similar themes of nature, landscape, agriculture, small towns, and the weather. I am two thirds through Prodigal Summer now, and on my knees to Kingsolver, who everybody else already knew was extraordinary, but it just took me awhile to find out. How wonderful to be reading this novel now, with the world around me so blooming, tonight out on my back deck with a cup of tea, and the trees all around, and the birdsong. I disappeared into my head, and into Kingsolver’s amazing imagination.
Anyway, the unexpected connection being the next book I’ve got to read, which is The Sister by Poppy Adams. I’ve got an advanced reader’s copy which betrays nothing of its content, and so was I ever surprised to see that it’s UK title is The Behaviour of Moths. But I would have picked up that title without delay (precedent for good things with moths in their title includes The Peppered Moth and “The Death of the Moth”)! I discover now it’s about an entomologist– and I’ve been obsessed with entomology lit ever since I read “Miss Ormerod” by Virginia Woolf. Anyway, I am excited. Particularly as a third of Prodigal Summer is entitled “Moth Love”, and so I am very excited to see how else these books link up. And then after we celebrate the world some more with Butala’s The Perfection of the Morning.
June 12, 2008
Am about to begin
Am about to begin reading Fever by Sharon Butala. Which is terribly exciting– I’ve never read her fiction before. Her writing spun me a spell when I read her latest book (non-fiction) The Girl in Saskatoon. And so I wonder how the spell will translate. Exciting also to be on the cusp of an author new (to me), with whole worlds to discover, and then already to be fairly sure that I’m going to love whatever I find.
June 6, 2008
Boyish book binge (which is different from a bookish boy binge)
I’m on a short boyish book binge. Now reading Victory by Joseph Conrad, for reasons I’ve already mentioned. It’s really wonderful, actually, thoroughly enjoyable. My last memory of reading Conrad was loathing Lord Jim and never actually finishing it (which was actually part of the reason it took me so long to get around the Lucky Jim [no relation]), so I am pleasantly surprised. I suspect my dislike for Lord Jim, however, had something to do with nautical themes and me being twenty. I’ll be rereading Heart of Darkness this summer, and so I’m pleased that my Conrad context will be just a bit wider. Anyway, Victory. All day I’ve been struck by the line, “For the use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passions, prejudices and follies, and also our fears.”
Next book on my list is Engleby by Sabastian Faulks, because Emily Perkins mentioned it in my interview with her. I am looking forward to that, and an author entirely new to me (and a buzzy one, because of James Bond).
So yes, two novels by men. As the last twenty-one novels I’ve read have been by women, this intervention was probably necessary. I do try to read men’s fiction once in a while, just to keep vaguely abreast of things. They’re not really for me, of course, but I do it for the sake of fairness. You’d be surprised how much good stuff there really is, actually, particularly once you move away from the more peculiar fixations (dogs, and cigars, and warfare). Some of it I can even identify with, though I’m not sure I’d call it literature exactly. There’s just never enough linoleum for it to qualify as that.
June 1, 2008
Stumbled In
Stumbled into a used bookshop today, and stumbled out after with an arm-full. Some controversial: Birthday by Alan Sillitoe, the sequel to my beloved Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Forty-years on, it is could be one thing or another. I also picked up Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, for I’ve hardly read her at all. And then I got The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for Carnival by Carol Shields, and though I’ll read one shortly, I’ll not read the other for years and years, for these are the last two I have left to read, and I don’t want to live in a world without more Carol Shields to discover.
Now reading Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith. Just finished Deborah Eisenberg’s majestic Twilight of the Superheroes.
May 21, 2008
New books
New books! On the weekend I got Stunt by Claudia Dey, and The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers (ed. Vendela Vida). Now reading In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill. Have just come down with an obsessive need to acquire a copy of The Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews.
May 14, 2008
Unless
This past weekend has ruined me, and I remain in a coma. Or perhaps I just can’t stop reading Rebecca long enough to focus on anything else. And I have a stack of books-to-be-read up to my elbows, so thankfully this weekend is a long one and I can fill it well.
Last evening I attended the Fiery First Fiction event, and it did not disappoint. I particularly enjoyed hearing Nathan Whitlock read from A Week of This (which I read last month), Shari Lapeña read from her book (which I’ve got upcoming), and then there was Claudia Dey who must have sold her book a thousand times. Personally I’m not sure how I’d live long without it– her reading was unbelievable. Coach House is publishing wonderful books these days; remember Pulpy and Midge? And I also want to read Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig.
Read Claudia Dey profiled in The Toronto Star. Watch “the list of books that make the best use of their type” at Baby Got Books. Lorrie Moore’s Collected Stories reviewed. Margaret Drabble is characteristically excellent in “The beginning of life should not be a subject for a crude polemic”.
Today whilst reading The Danforth Review on A Week of This, I was surprised to see my own review referenced. Bryson’s points are interesting, and I found quite illuminating his assertion that novels “are fictional inventions of imagined worlds. They are performances of language, and the references they make to each other– explicitly or implicitly– are of greater interest than a novel’s photo realism.” True enough, perhaps, but then isn’t the novel quite a multitudinous thing? And don’t we all approach it differently?
And like Heather Mallick, I’ve noticed this month’s issue of The Walrus is decidedly short on women writers. “Apparently you can’t have a good magazine unless women are writing it,” writes one of Mallick’s avid readers. But you sort of can’t, actually, in this day and age. Not if you’re writing a general interest/current events magazine, and women are writing practically none of it– is this really surprising? The only pieces written by women are two of four “field notes”, one of four book reviews, a poem by P.K. Page, and one of nine letters to the editor. (Perhaps the whole issue is the answer to Austin Clarke’s story title, “Where Are the Men?”) What all this signifies exactly, I cannot venture to say. But then to me the facts appear as such, I don’t actually need to say anything.
In related news, I’m looking forward to reading Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers. Check out coverage at The Savvy Reader.
May 8, 2008
What I have been waiting for
Last night I got to attend the Kama Reading Series again, with superstar readers Lawrence Hill, Anand Mahadevan, Kelley Armstrong and Miriam Toews. It was such an impressive assemblage, though I must say the ladies stole the show. I hadn’t heard of Armstrong before, but she really took that whole “I write vampire fiction” thing and ran with it– she was fabulous. Truly, I don’t get enough vampire fiction. And then Miriam Toews– I’ve only ever read her incredible memoir Swing Low: A Life, which is one of very few books that have ever left me sobbing. So I knew she was a good writer, but I hadn’t yet been exposed to how funny this woman is. She was hysterical, deadpan, right-on, and I could have listened to her read for ages. I would like to pay her to sit in my house and entertain me. And now I absolutely have to read her fiction– what have I been waiting for?
This week I’ve been reading Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, and getting ready to tack a huge stack of periodicals that have arrived in the post. Also enjoyed rob mclennan’s essay “Rereading Sheila Watson and Elizabeth Smart at the Garneau Pub, Edmonton”.
