Category Archives: Reading

A Bunch of Books I’m Glad I Didn’t Write

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A bunch of books I’m glad I didn’t write, courtesy of AbeBooks.com’s Weird Book Room.

  1. The Art of Painting Animals on Rocks by Linn Wellford- I’m pretty sure my Aunt Lauree owned this book. She definitely painted animals on rocks. It was a strange time.
  2. How You Can Bowl Better Using Self-Hypnosis-File this under: things I will never do, two.
  3. Whose Bottom is This? A Lift-the-Flap Book-Very educational, no doubt.
  4. A Lust for Window Sills by Harry Mount-Wasn’t this featured on an episode of Taboo?
  5. All About Scabs by Genichiro Yagyu-Everything you ever wanted to know, in one handy volume.
  6. A Cow is Too Much Trouble in Los Angeles by Joseph Foster-Sometimes you just have to learn things the hard way.

Plus, two I wish I had:

  1. Boy George Fashion and Make-up Book by Wayne Winder-Why the hell not? This is still relevant, right?
  2. Liberace: Your Personal Fashion Consultant by Michael and Karan Feder-If you really want to shine. I would die happy if this book was on my resume.

 

[Intermezzo] Five Minutes

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After I fall in love with a book, whether it happens with the opening sentence or mid-way through chapter five, in an effort to finish it I operate at one of two speeds: molasses-slow or maniacally fast. The process is involuntary, organic: I don’t choose the rate, it chooses me. Whether I’m pulling apart paragraphs sentence by sentence, and sentences word by word, or running through chapters to the rhythm of a hummingbird’s beating wings, one thing is true: I’m savoring every moment, every thought, every element. The paths are different, but the enjoyment is similarly intense.

Reading is ritualistic, with individual ceremonies developing around each book: fugitive but nourishing, their ordered peculiarities decorate the mosaic of my days. Continue reading →

[19 August 2012] This Week’s Lessons in Reading and Writing

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What I’ve (re)learned in the last week.

  • The rush that comes with writing fiction is like nothing else in the world. It feels entirely different from writing reviews or essays; not better, just different.
  • Liking writers, artists or performers is one thing. Enjoying fictionalized accounts of their lives is another. Some of these books are wonderful; others are boring or just plain bad. I am currently reading one of the former and one of the middle. The disparity in levels of enjoyment is huge.
  • Outlining an entire story and writing the opening 3 paragraphs in your head whilst still in bed is the best way to start a day.
  • I feel sexiest while tapping away at my keyboard, trying to bang out everything that is in my head before it dissolves into nothingness. Even though I am usually wearing yoga pants, a tee, too much moisturizer and a baker’s dozen of hairpins.
  • Taking five books and three magazines (and my Nook) on a road trip lasting 60 hours, start to finish, somehow does not seem excessive.
  • The WordPress community is just that: a community of supportive, wonderful, mostly awesome people. Some of them even allow you to write short stories based on their photographs. Thank you, lovelies.
  • Even when crazy shit happens (like this), reading a book makes it better.

A Reading List a Mile Long: Daedalus Books Midsummer 2012 Edition, Part II

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Here’s the companion piece to Part I, delivered as promised.

  • Travelling Heroes In the Epic Age of Homer by Robin Lane Fox
  • America Dreaming How Youth Changed America in the 60’s by Laban Carrick Hill
  • Fanny and Adelaide The Lives of the Remarkable Kemble Sisters by Ann Blainey
  • The Booklover’s Guide to the Midwest A Literary Tour by Greg Holden
  • Script and Scribble The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey
  • Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
  • Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel by Edmund White
  • The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head-Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay by Louis Begley
  • The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar
  • Woman of Letters Irene Nemirovsky and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
  • My Paper Chase True Stories of Vanished Times by Harold Evans
  • Paris to the Past Traveling Through French History by Train by Ina Caro
  • Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century by Ranchor Prime
  • The Life of David by Robert Pinsky
  • Saint Augustine, Tarsicius J. van Bavel, ed.
  • All Hopped Up and Ready to Go Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77 by Tony Fletcher
  • The Red Prince The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke by Timothy Snyder
  • Renaissance Florence on 5 Florins a Day by Charles FitzRoy

I’ve learned a few things from typing out this list.

  1. It should have been split into 3 parts.
  2. I am obviously intrigued by anyone with a secret life.
  3. Literary biographies are even more of a personal thing than I thought.

Plus, a bonus revelation:

  1. If I read all of these books (and everything else on my ever-fattening To-Read List) I would not only never write another word, I would spend 20 hours a day reading in bed. For the rest of my life.

 

 

 

A Reading List a Mile Long: Daedalus Books Midsummer 2012 Edition, Part I

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After re-arranging my studio, and putting the overflow stock neatly on shelves, I discovered that I have room for about 15 more books. Does this mean that I will stop buying them? Not a chance. They will probably be stacked waist-high on the floor within a year, but I promise to attempt restraint. (If it wasn’t for the library and generous family and friends, it would be much worse.) Thankfully, I receive a few book catalogs a month. I enjoy fantasy shopping in them, much as I did with toy flyers when I was a child. If something looks really compelling, I pull out my trusty reading journal and jot down the title and author on my “To Read” list. New books are added quicker than I can cross off old ones, but that is part of the joy of keeping such a record.

The Daedalus Books New Arrivals Midsummer 2012 catalog has so many interesting offerings that I have decided to split my greedy, greedy pickings in two. Here’s Part 1. Enjoy!

 

  • The Great Life Photographers by The Editors of Life (photography)
  • Hemingway Cutthroat by Michael Atkinson (mystery)
  • Schools of Tomorrow by John & Evelyn Dewey (education/society)
  • How to Mellify a Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science and Superstition by Vicki Leon (history)
  • Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn by Martha Gellhorn (history)
  • Kafka’s Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 14 Recipes by Mark Crick (literature)
  • A Blue Hand: The Beats in India by Deborah Baker (literature)
  • Rules of Civility: A Novel by Amor Towles (fiction)
  • A World Without Bees by Allison Benjamin & Brian McCallum (nature/science)
  • She Always Knew How Mae West, A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler (performing arts/biography)
  • The Art of Small Things by John Mack (visual arts)

 

A Reading List a Mile Long: Bas Bleu Summer 2012 Edition

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When it comes to books, I am straight-up greedy. I offer no apologies, only slow, regretful sighs that I cannot own all the books I want to read. Or read all the books I want to read. I could probably spend all of my waking time reading, until it carried over into my dreams, making my life a soft, sweet, contented whirl of words. Other people’s words. Oh. At this point, I would cease to be a writer. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all, but you get my drift. Books-I need them in my life. These are the volumes and literary-related goodies making me drool and pant and dream. Enjoy! Continue reading →

[20 May 2012] This Week’s Lessons in Reading and Writing

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  • My ideal non-fiction to fiction reading ratio is 4 to 1.
  • There are certain writers-as in certain foods-I just do not like. But it is still important to take them for a spin every couple of years to see if that has changed. You never know, I love mushrooms now.
  • I can go a week without reading a magazine-any magazine-and not explode.
  • The only way that I will devote time to fiction crafting is to firmly write it in, using indelible marker. Works every time. You’d think I would do that more often.
  • I should pay more attention to contemporary fiction (that actually has a contemporary setting.).
  • No matter how organized I am in other areas of my life (which is to say, I am usually HIGHLY organized) it is hard to apply that to my business for any extended period of time.

AND A LESSON RE-LEARNED:

  • Know your strengths and use them to move or alter creative boundaries.

[11 May 2012] This Week’s Lessons in Reading and Writing

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  • My Nook e-Book reader is my friend.
  • Bram Stoker’s Dracula is even better than I remembered.
  • Waking up a little earlier than normal is great for my writing brain.
  • Buying a fat stack of books is a natural high.
  • Success is at least 50% discipline, organization and perseverance. Self-promotion doesn’t hurt any, either.
  • I don’t hear pounding on my front door when I am in the writing zone. Which still does not give someone the right to walk in uninvited, even if this is an apartment. Ahem.
  • I’m not as attractive as I think I am when I am writing. I’m usually quite disheveled, apparently. Perhaps even wild-eyed. Whatever. This is what creation looks like, people. We don’t all look as preppy as Sylvia Plath whilst in thrall to the muse.
  • Taking a holiday-including from writing, however brief-is soul-illuminatingly wonderful.

A Reading List a Mile Long: Oxford University Press Edition

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These are just a few of the books I wish I had on hand for an upcoming road trip. Alas, I’ll have to make do with (perfectly lovely) other volumes. But a girl can dream (a dream of reading way too many books)!

  • ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies by Mark Griep and Marjorie Mikasen
  • On the Air The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by John Dunning
  • Darwin’s Camera Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution by Phillip Prodger
  • D.W. Griffith’s the Birth of a Nation A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time by Melvyn Stokes
  • The Urban Experience Economics, Society, and Public Policy by Barry Bluestone, Mary Huff Stevenson, and Russell Williams
  • Nightmare in Red The McCarthy Era in Perspective by Richard M. Fried
  • Atlas of the Medieval World by Rosamond McKitterick
  • The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History Four Volume Set Edited by Bonnie G. Smith
  • The Basque Country A Cultural History by Paddy Woodworth
  • Paris Tales Stories Translated by Helen Constantine
  • Scotland’s Books A History of Scottish Literature by Robert Crawford
  • A Dictionary of Creation Myths by David Leeming with Margaret Leeming
  • Swing Along The Musical Life of Will Marion Cook by Marva Griffin Carter

 

 

Some Book Recommendations for When You are Stuck in a Car for Way Too Long

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The lovely Elisa of Fun & Fabulousness-she of the impeccable eye-asked if I could recommend some books appropriate to read on a looong car ride. Specifically, five. Five books, so she can choose one for her trip.

Painting by Carl von Steuben

(Painting by Carl von Steuben)

I’m honored; naturally, I said yes! I promptly got to work. It was all downhill from there. What happened? Continue reading →