October 2, 2006
At the Vic Book Sale
I went mad at Half-Price Monday and acquired the following:
Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson, because I love the other books by her I’ve read; Survival by Margaret Atwood just because; Atwood’s The Journals of Susannah Moodie for my ghost course; Babel Tower by AS Byatt because sometimes I really like her; FINDS OF THE DAY Goodbye Without Leaving, Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, Another Marvelous Thing and A Big Storm Knocked it Over ie almost everything by Laurie Colwin; Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling, because I liked her Guardian Poetry workshop way back when; An American Childhood by Annie Dillard, because I used to own it and left it in Japan; Mavis Gallant’s Paris Notebooks, because I read it years ago and loved it; The Remains of the Day because I’ve never read it and Kim Dean said I should; Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri because Kim Dean picked it up and said “Read this” just as Amy Tan said she would on the book’s back cover; Heat Wave and Spiderweb by Penelope Lively because I LOVE her; Martin Sloane because it was a dollar; Moo because I’m in the mood for campus fiction; Park and Ride by Miranda Sawyer because I’ve read it and liked it, and I’m up for “adventures in suburbia”; and The Queen and I by Sue Townsend, which also used to belong to me but I had to leave it behind in England. All this for $27. Oh yes, it had been a fine fine day. It’s nice that I like authors that are so unfashionable I can pick them up in droves for pennies.
October 1, 2006
Dip Surfeit
Oh, a most pleasant weekend has been mine. I met with Katie on Friday evening so she could assist me in a shoe shop; I needed black heels to accompany my bridesmaid’s dress for her upcoming wedding. I got a pair I adore, and then we shared a dessert, and had a wonderful while together. Last night, we had a small gathering at ours, and I was in a determinedly hostessy state of mind and cooked for four hours in preparation. Unfortunately, I’m not a brilliant hostess and it was too late when I realized that my menu consisted of various dips and dippers, which hardly constitutes variety, no matter how scrumptious my roasted red pepper/white bean dip was. So I made mini bruschetta-like pizzas, and cupcakes too, and drank enough wine that I forgot to worry about it. Topic of the evening focussed mainly upon what must have been going on back in Gomorrah. Sodom- pretty straight-forward- but I can’t imagine what they must have got up to down in G-Town. I missed Nuit Blanche, but that’s because I couldn’t figure out what it was. And now we’re about to embark upon an autumnal walk. It’s not raining at the mo, which is strange for a Sunday.
Nick Hornby on public reading. Belinda likes sex.
I’ve displayed excellent restraint this weekend, and have saved myself from the Victoria College Booksale. I am going tomorrow, which is half-price day, and then I can spend spend spend without a hint of remorse.
October 1, 2006
A Waiting
The Sea Lady is released in Canada tomorrow. My copy has been preordered for ages, but Amazon informs me it won’t arrive for at least a week or so. And so the wait continues, but you can’t say we’re not ready.
September 30, 2006
Please insert change
I knew that Every Day is Mother’s Day would cure all that ailed me. It was wonderful and horrifying; Hilary Mantel has such a gloriously sick mind. In this book, Colin is having an affair with Isabel, and, as it’s the mid 1970s, he frequently needs to come up with reasons to nip out to the phonebox and call her. And I couldn’t help thinking about cellphones as a plot device, a topic that has fascinated me, mainly in film actually. There are all kinds of movies, books and television shows that wouldn’t have been remotely plottable before cellphones came into use- CSI would struggle, 24, various ransom stories. However the phonebox is a plot device all its own- I’m thinking Rosemary’s Baby, Superman of course, and obviously Phone Booth. In addition, I can’t help but think of all the old storylines that could have been cleared up in just five minutes, if a cellphone had only fallen from the sky.
September 27, 2006
Swing Low
I’ve been feeling a bit crap the last couple of days, worrying about absolutely everything which led to my being put to bed with a migraine last night, my computer has gone haywire, and I’ve become an emotional idiot, bawling upon finishing Swing Low and reading As For Me and My House, despairing I was Mrs. Bentley. I tend towards dramatics, much as I attempt otherwise. I really can be a pain in the ass. I am going to stop reading books about the prairies though, or I will definitely require defenestration.
And so Hilary Mantel is up next with Every Day is Mother’s Day. We are having a very small party-like gathering on Saturday, which I’m looking forward to. My new Margaret Drabble arrives in just about a week. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…
September 25, 2006
Monday
I just finished reading City of the Mind by Penelope Lively, who is one of my favourite authors, and every one of her books I like better than the last. City of the Mind is to place, what her Moon Tiger was to history. The city as a symbol, and the very specific history of London. Loved it. I especially love how Lively’s characters always have jobs. A job is vital to good characterization (for example Perowne the neurosurgeon in Saturday, or Reta Winters the writer in Unless) in contemporary work especially. “What do you do?” is so defining. The last Penelope Lively book I read was The Photograph, in which the main character was a garden designer, and in City of the Mind, the character was an architect, and a writer can show so much about a character by showing how he/she performs their job, engages with colleagues, and what led them to their field. It’s fascinating to learn too, about a profession as foreign as another language (neurosurgery anyone?). It just makes that character’s world so much more alive.
And I am back at my part time post at the library, which means I come home with more and more books every day. Today I took out Swing Low: A Life in order to learn a bit more about depression, as a character in my story suffers with it. And also got my hands on new books I was a Child of Holocaust Survivors and Creation by EO Wilson.
Beyond books, ah but not quite. Yesterday was spent at Word on the Street and it was a lot of fun. Echolocation was well-represented I thought and I gave a bookmark to the mayor.
Today’s highlight was an epistle from my epistolary-pal Bronwyn. She has asked me to be her matron of honour, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so honoured. I didn’t even dare to imagine such a thing would happen. I would have been happy just to be there. And now I will be there, but with a dress on. Whoever would have thought, when Bronwyn and I met during the summer of 2001 in Toronto that just a few years later we would be bridesmaiding for each other at our respective English weddings to a wonderful pair of Northern blokes. Life is funny. Hmmmm.
Am obsessed with The Weather Network’s School Days Pages. They tell you what to wear to and from school, which is a service I’ve been longing for forever. Don’t know how practical it really is though. This morning I should have worn snowboots, a parka and gloves, and then wellingtons and a slicker on my home. It’s the winter clothes again tomorrow morn, and then a light spring jacket in the afternoon. I don’t think I own that many clothes. And the winter boots are really quite premature, really. 8 degrees is hardly freezing.
September 23, 2006
There's lots of echolocation news….
First, my story “Carousel” appears in the latest issue. It’s not available online, but for $8 a whole book containing it could be yours. See site for details.
Second, www.echolocation.ca has been overhauled and the site looks really excellent.
Third, I am the new prose editor of echolocation, beginning with the next issue. We are now accepting submissions and naturally, I am really after some quality prose. See submission details.
And finally, I’ll be at Word on the Street on Sunday. Come to buy back issues, to subscribe, and to pick up your complimentary bookmark.
September 22, 2006
The Queue
My admission of the day is that I like Stephanie Klein, the Carrie Bradshaw of the blogosphere. I encountered her while researching my seminar on blooks last spring, and learned about her six-figure deal with Reganbooks. And after checking out her blog, not even that extensively, I realized I really couldn’t hate her because she is so heartbreakingly earnest and sort of lovely. Anyway, the point is that I put her book on hold at the library today. I don’t think this means that I am a bad person. It does mean, however, that I will be reading it before Reading Like a Writer or Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I am 33rd in line for Klein’s book, 90th for Prose’s and 230th for the Popular Ms. Pessl.
September 21, 2006
Interesting
My character, who is speaking in 1970, probably would not have used the verb “upgrade”, and would definitely not have used the adjective “upgraded”. She could have used the noun “upgrade” when talking about a hill, but only if her vocabulary was a little archaic.
