November 22, 2007
Spouts
Now reading Janette Turner Hospital’s Orpheus Lost, which comes with music and intrigue and has me caught in its grip. More to come on that, and then I’m reading The Great Man by Kate Christensen. Before I start off on my non-fiction binge; I’ve got planned Beijing Confidential by Jan Wong, Villa Air Bel by Rosemary Sullivan, The Dirt on Clean by Katherine Ashenburg, and finally Guns Germs and Steel because it’s about bleeding time.
And just as I’m on about Kate Christensen, Maud Newton gives us her recipe for brussels sprouts. Naturally. (Did you know the most mortifying incident of my whole life involved brussels sprouts? And a dog. Naturally). She will be posting more recipes by writers to come. How exciting. They were celebrating the Gardiner Expressway in the paper this weekend. How refreshing, and as you might know, I concur. Guardian blogger rereading Bookers past. Costa Prize first novel shortlist includes Gifted (which I’ve read) and The Golden Age (still ahead).
November 13, 2007
Striptease
Lucky Jim, apart from being all it’s cracked up to be, has one scene containing an essential element missing from every other sex scene ever written: “Dixon twitched off his, then her, spectacles and put them down somewhere. He kissed her again, harder…” Oh, for lust in academia!
November 12, 2007
Red is best
Will shortly be now-reading Lucky Jim, upon the recommendation of Rona Maynard, and Kate Christensen. How exciting! Exciting also that today, albeit from a cardboard box on the sidewalk, I acquired the marvelous children’s book Red is Best. (When I was six, illustrator Robin Baird Lewis came to my school and I met her!) And finally today is the twentieth anniversary of my writing aspirations, which were born when I wrote a poem called “War” in grade three.
November 5, 2007
Tone lowering
Today is my favourite day of the year– the day with twenty five hours in it. Happy birthday to my sister! Just about to finish Larry’s Party (in the bath), which has been everything I wanted it to be. Next up is Alice Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which I’ve been meaning to get to for ages. I’m ‘xausted now after a busy weekend, but I’ve got lots of blog posts budding my head. Until tomorrow, I suppose, and the days that follow. In the meantime, Tom Perotta profiled at the CBC. More on favourite short stories (and have you read the lists of Rebecca and Steven?). Here for Giller commentary. On literary non-fiction (and I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow). And, um, in sharing a link to Canada’s Cutest Trick-or-Treaters, I have lowered the tone of this blog, but how else can I convey my obsession with very small children dressed up like kangaroos?
October 31, 2007
What they are
“My life unknits as I lie here. How many days? How many nights? My stories are my mother’s stories, my grandmother’s, my daughter’s. I did not plan any of them; they became what they became; they are what they are.” –Frances Itani, Remembering the Bones
October 26, 2007
Now gazing
Now gazing at the gorgeous endpapers of Dalia Sofer’s novel The Septembers of Shiraz. Touches such as these: ribbons, embossing, endpapers, good binding– once so common, to encounter them now is quite extraordinary. Highlighting, I believe, that what lies inside is special, and this book truly is. It came recommended by Deanna, and secondarily through a review by Claire Messud (who I’ve come to respect exponentially). My own review is to follow upon finish, but in the meantime, I am enjoying this, the story of a family’s experience just after the revolution in Iran. The son’s story in particulous is resonating, and showing a side of immigration that I’ve previously noted being omitted from American novels. The loneliness– “And his jokes, when translated, are no longer funny.” That one simple line broke my heart, with all its implications, the tenderness and the longing. Like being cut off from one’s own soul, I suppose.
October 23, 2007
Cancel intellectualism
Now devouring The Abstinence Teacher by Joe Perrotta (who wrote Election). Oh, I wish I could take a holiday from the rest of my life, and crawl under a duvet with a flashlight to finish it.
I am very looking forward to reading Eleanor Wachtel’s new book Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields.
Today I was flattered to read that The London Review of Books is “an esteemed, small-circulation literary periodical read mainly by academics and bookish intellectuals.” See, we get it at our house. But then I suppose any bookish intellectualism may well be cancelled out by Spice Mania.
I thought Anne Enright’s piece was fair, thoughtful, and honest, by the way. And I am also looking forward to reading The Gathering.
October 15, 2007
False Prophets
Now reading The Golden Notebook, on the back of a bandwagon. My reading is informed by essays on Lessing by Joan Didion and Heather Mallick, each from an opposing point of view. (I wonder what Mallick thinks now of her essay “Lessing is More” having been subtitled “Why Doris Lessing won’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature”, though the subtitle seems to be the only thing she got wrong in the entire piece).
Also now reading Margaret Atwood’s new collection of poetry The Door which is wonderful.
Finally, my first post “Encounters with Books” is now up at the Descant blog. A few bugs still need to be worked out over there, but I hope you’ll check my piece out, and that you enjoy it.
October 3, 2007
An ideal marriage
An ideal marriage I have discovered, as indeed I am longing to get through the nonfiction books in my stack, but I can’t bear to give up lies for too long. So I am reading two books at once now, nonfiction complemented by a collection of short stories: the former being Kate Grenville’s Searching for the Secret River, and the latter is Jack Hodgins’ Damage Done by the Storm. Perfect! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Grenville’s book is wonderful so far, though I am approaching it from a strange place having never read The Secret River. It’s asking a lot of the same questions as Bernice Morgan’s novel Cloud of Bone, but from an Australian point of view, about remembering and forgetting, and the price we pay for either. Even some of the scenes are reminiscent, which is strange for two books of nonfiction and fiction respectively. And just getting into the Hodgins (one story before bed, you know). I’ve read his A Passion for Narrative before, and am excited to see his theory in action.
I have also become a compulsive squash buyer. Soon this will have to stop.
September 30, 2007
No Nuit Blanche
Here is a photo of Stuart and I experiencing our urban landscape. Alas, we did not get to Nuit Blanche. On the way home from a brilliant night at Rebecca Rosenblum’s (with such good company as Chapati Kid), I shared public transportation with people going to Nuit Blanche, and their company made me want to go home to read. I’m glad I did.
And now we’ve just arrived home from The Word on the Street, which was a brilliant afternoon. I should have paid more attention to the scheduling though, instead of showing up blind, as I’m sure there was a lot of good programming I missed. Such as Elizabeth Hay, whose novel I finished Friday night and was the best book I’ve read this year. I could have heard her read! She could have signed book! I lined up at the author’s signing tent anyway, and told her how much I’d enjoyed her book. Managing not to be too much of a blathering idiot, which is sweet relief. Afterwards I also met the lovely Kim Jernigan of The New Quarterly, which was exciting. And finally to the main event, as Patricia Storms presented and read from her new book 13 Ghosts of Halloween. It was delightful. She was absolutely entertaining, the presentation was fabulous, we got hear her sing!, and after she signed my book. Plus I got to meet her, which was nice. I am an ever-adoring fan.
So a good day, in daylight. I freaked out though, about the proximity of The Vic Book Sale to The Word on the Street Crowd, and wondered if they’d leave anything for the rest of us tomorrow. And then I came to the conclusion, all on my own, that even if they didn’t, I have eight billions books of my own still to read, some of which I bought at the book sale last year, and a whole host of others on reserve at the library. Which I thought was very mature, and I deserved a pat on the back for. Whenever I refrain from childishness, I always feel this proud.
Today I picked up The Beatles Blue Album, which made me fall in love with them years ago, and I want to again. Now reading Alice I Think by Susan Juby, which is out in its own grown-up edition, and, really, it positively should be.
